


Ours is the Apocryphal

by FilthyWeebTrash



Series: Ours Is [2]
Category: RWBY, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Chaos, Corruption, Crossover, Mystic Shaman Voodoo Homeless People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 19:51:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14339754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilthyWeebTrash/pseuds/FilthyWeebTrash
Summary: "Of all the legends of the Imperium, one of the strangest is that of the Legion of the Damned. For those who know where to look, there are many corroborated accounts of these otherworldly warriors, their unexpected appearances upon a desperate battlefield, and their sudden and inexplicable disappearance at the battle's end." — Inquisitor D. Merloriac, Ordo Chronos





	Ours is the Apocryphal

Chance is the angel- terrible and bold, wrathful like sweet song and cruel with the crushing vines of martyrdom.  
  
Sayeth prayer to the bones of men- beyond the skins of death, locked into the vagaries of time- hollow eyes questioning and punitive.  
  
Look not into the flame of sanctimony, inaction and sloth; pain torments those who would hold fast to the sinners’ coils in the shapes of these heresies.  
  
-Pride of Angels, Sermon of St. Sebastian Thor- Collective Preaching’s Volume XVI, Third edition, sixth reprint, remastered M41.453  
  
...  
  
I am death.  
I am of death.  
I am brought by death.  
I am the instrument of deaths work.  
  
There is no foe that I cannot reach.  
  
I am the jagged bone.  
I am the grinning skull.  
I am unbreakable.  
I am unstoppable.  
  
There is no weapon that can harm me.  
  
I am the face behind fears mask.  
I am the chain that reaches from beyond oblivion.  
I am the incarnation of a grieving master.  
I am the last rite to be given to the hopeless.  
  
There is nothing left to feel.  
  
I can never tire.  
I can never die.  
I can never rest.  
I am left to suffer.  
  
  
There is no end to duty.  
  
I am the last candle in the abyss.  
I am the flame that refuses to submit.  
I am the embers.  
I am a final chance to those with the courage to fight.  
  
For there is yet hope in the bleakest night.  
  
I am Lost.  
  
I walk.  
Sand beneath me.  
Sand around me.  
 Cold.  
Dead.  
Life.  
Whispers in the wind.  
Death was here. And there. Here and there.  
Vagaries of hate. Old thoughts drift like smoke.  
The rattle of bones. Teeth against metal.  
I walk.  
I am Blind.  
There is no heat.  
There is nothing.  
Time has no meaning.  
It never had a meaning.  
  
Wind blows. A sun falls. Shrubs brown and dying.  
I walk. I cannot be stopped. I cannot stop.  
The heat will come. The flame will return. I will have purpose.  
Answers are in the flame.  
A break in the dream.  
  
I walk across sand. I walk across rock. I walk across grass.  
Green, emerald, alive.  
No traces of my passing.  
It is night. ‘Stars overhead. Unobstructed.  
A shattered moon.  
There is a city. A town. A settlement.  
It is in flames.  
Fire. The dim lifts. A haze vanishes. The city burns.  
There are screams. There is gunfire. Roars.  
  
I walk  
The curtain yields to me. The reality about me bends.  
The roars of beasts. The resistance of man.  
  
If they fight.  
  
If they resist  
  
Then there is work to be done.  
…  
The Grimm come again, there is no method to their rage, there is only a single massive wave foretold by the braying howls of Beowolves. Their lupine shadow-shapes flecked with red and spears of white. They come again- the pack is enormous. Helvad tightens his grip on his rifle, and stares down from the watchtower.  
  
He takes a moment to inspect his weapon, the wooden frame familiar to his eyes but foreign to his hands. He remembers it well; its place above the mantle has always been etched in his memory. It was a venerable piece of his families’ history, the sign of his grandfathers’ contribution in the wars against the grimm that founded this outskirt village and defended it. Every home had at least one weapon, be they spears, guns or swords.  
  
He never thought he would ever have to hold it, his families’ rifle. It was an old and crude piece of wood and metal, wholly outdated by the more modern pieces he had seen Hunters carry during the few times they had graced this shitty border village. He at first doubted that the snub barreled thing could even fire. Such a notion was long gone; the shell casings at his feet were proof to that.  
  
Helvad pulls back the bolt, checking to see if a round was loaded, the shiny brass back of a shell cartridge met his tired eyes. “The barricades wont hold out against another attack.” Green muttered next to him. Helvad worked the bolt back and down, he turned the rifle over in his hands and ejected the clip. He was eerily disconcerted with how he had so quickly learned to tell the fullness of a clip by weight alone. “We may be able to hold for a few minutes, but the other towers are low on rounds, we can only maybe pick off a few of them before they smash through the gates.” She was shaking slightly, hands picking at the flaking wood of her double-barreled scattershot.  
  
He pushed the clip home; it fit snugly and clicked into place. He brought the rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, this was the important bit. “We’ve already lost Jairah and Wence during the last attack- Grimm tore them apart, pulled them right through the holes in the gate- didn’t you see?” She was shaking now, long ears twitching and trembling. He brought the long barreled scope to his eye, the crosshairs came into focus; blurry at first and then settling when he held still. He saw the black mass flicker in the distance, rolling over the hills like a malicious sea-tide. The last hill crested about eight-hundred meters out, his scope met that well enough, but his rifle fared only to five-hundred, and he knew that he could only place shots well at three hundred.  
  
“I swear to the maidens, we’re all going to die,” He brought his rifle down and pulled the dirty rag from his trousers. “They’re going to kill us first, tear us to bits- then they’ll kill our families, our wives, our husbands, our children, our sisters, our brothers- they’ll destroy everything-“ Helvad blows on the front of his scope, and wipes the glass with the rag like he has for the past six attacks. It doesn’t do anything, the watchtower is too high up to be plagued by the blood, dirt, and sweat that mires the defenders down below. He does it because it calms him. “We can’t win, what’s the point? They’ll slaughter us, I don’t want to die; I don’t want Marice to die!” He reaches down to the basket between them and pulls out a dwindling handful of bullets, sifting through the scattershot shells to find them, he doubts they’ll be any left if they manage to survive this next charge. He pulls the five empty clips from his pocket, and leans his rifle against the rail. He reckons he’ll have enough time to load at least three before they’re in effective range of his shots. He’s gotten quite good at this, he must admit.  
  
Green sags to her knees next to him, hugging her scattershot close- heavy iron slugs were loaded in it, powerful things that only worked when they were within spitting distance- but damn did they tear the snot out of Grimm. Only had two shots before she had to reload, but the punch they provided was worth it. “We- we should run, the next village is only a few miles away, we can still make it if we set fire to the-“ Green nearly fell out of the tower when his heavy fist- still clutching several rounds- slammed into her face and broke her nose. It shut her up, and it felt nice to strike a Faunus in anger, he never did care for their ilk, but such prejudices fell away when the Grimm attack. “You better shut that cowards talk.” He whispered, her wide green eyes staring across at him in fear, her hand over her nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He went back to rapidly filing rounds into the stripper clips laid out before him.  
  
“Whine all you want, rabbit-ears, cry as much as you wish- but don’t you dare speak about running, I’ll shoot you the next time you say that.” He looked out over the rim of the watchtower, his brow furrowing. “Pick up that gun and make yourself useful. They’re here.” He brought his rifle to his shoulder. If he survived, he knew he would have an ugly bruise from the constant bucking of the gun. His son would be proud to see it. The thought gave him strength that the Faunus next to him was sorely lacking in. “Think of your wife,” he stated. “What would she say to you, if you ran?” He heard her snivel, but he also heard her pushing shells into the breech of her gun.  
  
He looked through the scope. They were at least four hundred meters out. Close enough for a speculative shot in his opinion, he aimed slightly higher, and pulled the trigger.  
  
There was no way he could have missed, with so many screaming together, feet pounding the ground.  
  
…  
X…  
  
  
They exist in hate.  
 They eclipse the hills.  
A dark flame across my vision.  
 A heat roils from them.  
It is a heat that I can perceive.  
Swift, lethal, ravenous.  
They snarl, they roar, they howl, they whine.  
In the distance- they fight.  
Man sits upon the precipice, just as it has so many times before.  
A final hurrah, a last defense against impossible odds.  
There is valor here.  
There are heroes standing guard at the ramshackle walls of splintered wood and oaken gates straining at the hinges.  
There is also weakness.  
I stare.  
I stare and wait.  
A shot rings out.  
A flash in the night.  
The haze wraps around it.  
A beast falls, a voice lost from the chorus.  
Another shot, another crack, then another and another.  
They come quickly now- beast and bullet.  
Arrows fly, steel bolts are loosed- arching high and falling.  
  
The fire is bright, but it wavers, not yet stoked - the desperation is not yet there.  
  
The dark roll forwards. They trample over their dead and tear apart the dying.  
  
Fire ripples from the murder holes spread about in the walls.  
Rifles, bows, crossbows, buckshot and slugs.  
The harmony is dead.  
The first wave falls, failing to even close upon the gates.  
The second rank falters. The third tramples the second.  
The fourth stampedes over the dying of the third.  
The fifth is entirely unmolested, and piles onto the ravenous packs that tear at the straining wood of the gates.  
The defenders fire at gnashing teeth and ripping claws.  
One slips through the widening cracks.  
A torn board flies off and the sinuous form of the beasts press through it.  
A cry goes up from behind the walls.  
A candle flickers and dims, snuffed out, lost.  
  
It will not be the first.  
…  
  
Helvad works the bolt relentlessly now. There is no point in aiming, it is impossible to miss. Green is openly sobbing next to him; snot and tears run down her face. With shaking hands she fumbles in another two slugs. She closes the breach and points, fires. Two grimm are annihilated. Some are trying to scale the walls, dagger claws digging into old oaken wood. Helvad disperses with such illusions, a series of shots picks them off, sends them back down into the writhing mass of fur and bone and blood red eyes.  
  
“Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die…” Greene stammers and stutters, but she does not stop shooting. Helvad is silent in contrast. He curses the hunters in his mind, a sadistic curse on his lips about them. The mayor had tried to appeal to the Academies for a single hunter to aid them against the rising hordes of Grimm that were skulking about in the woods, but of course, nobody cares about the frontier settlements.  
  
He blames the Faunus, there were countless of them living in this village. The cities must’ve thought this settlement a Faunus village and ignored them because of it- if only they had known that it was his great grandfathers that had built this place- human hands and human blood. The half-breeds came crawling only after.  
  
Helvad promised himself- swore it- that the last person to be standing, the last person to fall- would be a human, fighting to the last. His firing pin hit empty air, and he ejected another empty clip. He reached for another full clip that he knew would not be there. He reached down, and started forcing single rounds into an open breech, one shot after the other, fire and reload. He watched the gate splinter, wood began to buckle inwards, and he took sick satisfaction in how it cut and rent the skin of Grimm as they tried to push through. A simpler younger part of his mind whispered that the town knew their plight, and was fighting back with them in its own small ways.  
  
He fired again, and reloaded. The boxes, benches, and barrels stacked up against the gate along with the boards nailed across it are being forced aside with every savage crash against the entrance. It would not hold for much longer, and the Grimm cared not that their dead were stacking up against the front of the town. He doubted that it even occurred to them to try the sparsely defended back entrance. The grimm saw them- there, at the front, just slightly out of reach and that peculiar instinct of theirs to rip and tear took over.  
  
Halved saw the exact moment when the gate broke apart. The savage roar of the Grimm and the mass of bodies clawing and ramming against it- one last smash and the gates buckled inwards, wood splintering, hinges creaking, and it held there for a moment- a line of tension like the filmy surface of the water holding back the inescapable numbers- and then breaking inwards in a shower of wooden splinters and grimm bodies.  The screams, already loud before, now fully erupted from the defenders. “Shit,” Sighed Helvad. He had been numb ever since the last wave. He fired, and reloaded  
  
Those manning the front entrance, stacked boxes just down the street, standing behind this feeble barricade, opened up with their guns and bows, the second line of defense lasted for only about a half a minute. Halved did not see their defense crumble. He was too busy smashing the butt of his rifle into the face of a Beowolf that had climbed up the struts of his watchtower. It was not the only one to do so. Like spiders they dug their claws into the hefty pole supports of the tower, creeping up it to reach the blood and flesh that resisted up within. Green was lost to hysterics, and Halved snarled at her to shut up and fight. He did not have the time or rounds to fulfill his promise as she collapsed into a ball, gun forgotten. He fired, reloaded, and kicked out at a grimm beast that scrambled up from the edge, it flew back down into the endless mass below. One came over the rail from behind, and he shot it point blank, the skull came away as the bullet punched through, and with luck it nocked the grim behind it as it fell. His life was measured now in the minutes. He fired, and punched the bullet he was about to load into the eye of a grim climbing over the edge. The grim screamed and fell backwards, Green screamed now as a grimm claws at her from the edge, she pushed herself back away from the grimm that she could have kicked over, and he hated her all the more for her lack of conviction and defiance. He snapped his foot out, sending the grimm flying back over the edge, he grabbed a grimm that was climbing over the edge to his right, his hand finding purchase on the bony plate just behind its skull it ripped a claw along his forearm but he ignored it, hauling it over into the tower and throwing it bodily at the three Beowolves that were clambering up over the edge before him, the beowolf struck the three and cast them back down.  
  
He only now realized that he is laughing.  
  
It is not entirely sane.  
…  
  
They have broken.  
They have been broken  
They were broken before even the fight began.  
Some still resist.  
The rest scream.  
  
Those who still fight…  
It is enough.  
  
The fire wraps around me.  
I feel no heat.  
The grass around my feet is scorched back.  
The divine instrument in my hands sighs, the glow from its barrel ignites the air before it.  
  
I walk.  
The first ripple of explosions I walk through the horde wreaks havoc amongst the ranks of beasts.  
  
The flame shifts before me: the reds and blacks of my sight erupt into a violent conflagration.  
  
The hiss click chatter becomes my hearing.  
The deceptively light coughs of the weapon are at odds with the trailing screaming fists that rip apart the beasts.  
Each shot pulls a great many into death.  
The fire spreads; I feel His eyes upon me.  
  
The heat erodes the ground, fire burns across my body.  
The air is heavy with smoke. I am amongst them now- they turn to corpses.  
There is fear in the air.  
  
It is virgin fear.  
Fear born from beasts that do not know what it is.  
They cannot comprehend me.  
I cannot comprehend me.  
They cannot comprehend what I am doing to them.  
They know only one apex and that is themselves.  
Now I am here.  
The weight of power is altered.  
I have brought balance.  
The black flames close in around me.  
I feel their hate.  
I feel their fear.  
It is good.  
Thud-cough-thud-cough-thud-cough-thud-cough.  
This is the sound that I make.  
There is no other.  
The ripple of explosions, the cries of beasts, they are their own entity.  
…  
  
He stabs, he stabs again. Blood clouds his vision, and he screams and laughs at the same time. The Grimm tumbles back down; it takes his knife with him. He punches now, a Grimm tears at his leg, as a grimm tears at its legs, trying to pull it off so that it may be the one to kill him. He smashes his fist at it- it does nothing. He grabs the busted stock of his rifle, the splintered wood gouges the Beowolf and at last it releases its hold as a sharpened splinter stabs into its eye and then brain. He curses the Beowolf that clambers up after the other falls, he kicks this one off with his good leg; he slouches to the floor of the tower. Something smashes into the base of the watchtower.  
  
And here, everything becomes only worse.  
  
It is slight at first; Halved grapples with a Grimm, too engaged in keeping the gaping jaws of the beast away from his face and the pain from another gnawing at his good leg to notice. Then it becomes more pronounced. Louder- closer.  
  
The snapping of wood. The creaking of the tower, the lean of gravity.  
  
The tower falls. The weight of bodies on its structure pulling it down.  
…  
  
I kill, I kill again, I will keep killing until I can no longer kill anymore.  
The fire is roiling within me, but it is not burning.  
It simmers despite its intensity.  
There is no real contest.  
No real battle.  
I shift, and I walk.  
Bodies burn around me, fire trails my footsteps.  
Flames without heat, or is it heat without flames?  
The gates.  
So modest yet so vital are shattered, I walk through the debris.  
I resume killing.  
There is ash.  
There is smoke.  
There are black flames engulfing the precious candles.  
I intercede.  
The black flames pull away.  
They flee like shadows in harsh light.  
I kill another, and then I kill again.  
…  
His respite is brief and painful. A nail bites through his cheek; a weight crushes his good arm. Desperation and adrenalin offers the strength he otherwise would not have, and he rises, pushing boards off of him with one hand, and dragging himself out of the wreckage of the watchtower.  
The grimm are on him almost at once. The snarling Beowolf lunges at his face, maw open, fangs glistening white like stars- and then it is gone.  
  
It is knocked away, out of the air, a bright flash erupts in front of his vision- and he feels the lick of flames over his skin- but they do not burn, there is no snarling crackle of burning flesh- but there is the acrid stench of smoldering fur. He opens an eye; a charred, devastated corpse twitches on the ground before him, blackened earth underneath it.  
  
Beyond it- hundreds more.  
  
There is no end to the bodies.  
  
There is no end to the Grimm corpses, stacked across the street nearly four feet high.  
  
Halved pulls himself from the rubble, blood leaks down his arm, his legs are chewed and torn, he can only open one eye, and on his right hand he misses several fingers. He pulls the nail from his cheek; a chunk of flesh comes with it.  
  
He looks around him again.  
  
The gate is shattered; the walls are torn down in places. The watchtowers for the most part are collapsed. He sits in a pool of ichor- the stuff of the Grimm.  
  
Somewhere, a fire burns within the village.  
  
The howl of the Grimm is gone, he can hear sobbing somewhere off in the village.  Gunshots.  
  
Then he sees it.  
  
Several meters away. Standing there.  
  
The fear he thought lost on him returns now. Halved stops breathing. His heart stops.  
  
His one eye tries to look away. It cannot.  
  
It is standing there. It is silent and black. It is standing alone.  
  
It is tall, it is black, and it is covered in bone.  
  
It is not looking at him; he does not want it to look at him- he cannot move. He sees it standing there; black, tall, dead bones covered its body- solid, black and abyssal black. The strips of white- bones- offer it the only solidity to its frame. Fire.  
  
Burnished noble funeral flames wreath it.  
  
It stands there. Unmoving. Silent. It makes no sound- if it were to move, if it were to make a noise, Halved is sure that he would die- that he would scream and then die.  
  
The Grimm are all dead.  
…  
  
The deed is done.  
The black fires are dead.  
Man stands where The Foe has fallen.  
The Warp flickers.  
It pulls.  
The Ether whispers.  
  
It envelops me. The roiling flow of the Warp-tides crashes through me.  
I let myself be caught up by it. I let myself merge with the wellspring wrought waters of un-reality.  
  
The wave pulls back, it leaves as quickly as it is called.  
It tears through everything, unseen and unfelt.  
I feel it fully.  
I feel the power in its motions; I feel the passing of its moment.  
  
I can feel the corruption in the waves, felt but unseen.  
It is a cancer unchecked.  
It is a virgin world, unmolested by the greater powers.  
Something had changed that, it must be halted.  
  
I look outwards.  
My vision pierces reality and searches unreality.  
Fate is set before me.  
I run the steins through my boney hands.  
  
I see.  
I have much work to do.  
  
I have delivered this hovel.  
Three others had fallen.  
It was inconsequential.  
A greater foe rises.  
  
It is time to walk.  
…  
  
The Giant moves. He watches it from his rubble, shattered boards piled around him, nails scratching flesh. He watches it turn, the flame around it moves out of time with its motions, slow ripples of fire drifting behind it like the currents of water in a sluggish stream. It makes no sound- it is so deathly silent. Has it noticed him? Has it seen him and disregarded his person?  
  
It walks now, not fully there- the sunlight reaching out over the mountains so distant does not touch its bulk- it passes through and beyond. It casts a shadow, it is a tainted silhouette against the ground. It fades from his sight just as the sun fully rises.  
  
The wreckage shifts beside him. Pain wraps his mind, but he is strong now. He winces as he moves, and pulls a board from the pile, and then another.  
  
It is Green, the black haired Faunus woman- the coward. She is coughing, she is sobbing. Her ears twitch and bits of dirt and wood fall from her tattered clothes. She blinks tears from her eyes. Halved looks away from her, she does not seem hurt at all. He can’t stand to see her unscathed. The street is packed with the dead. Grimm bodies begin to smoke and rot in the suns light. Wisps of smoke rise from the dead beasts.  
  
They turn to carrion, and then to dust. The dust fades away too, and all that is left are the corpses of the defenders. He is proud of the dead more then he is of the living. The contrast of a fighter to a coward is clear before him and behind him. She moves behind him, stepping over him and into the street to stand amongst the ruin. Houses and buildings are for the most part unmolested, but there are hints of damage- it could not be avoided.  
  
He pulls himself from the ruin of the watchtower, he tries not to look at his legs, but he cannot ignore the pain the movement causes him. He takes a quick glance, and regrets it. His left leg: ruined meat and blood, with hits of bone. He tears his coat off, and makes quick work to bandage the mess of muscle and meat.  
  
He gazes at the buildings. He can see movement behind windows. Faces appear in them, pressed against the glass. Young and old faces, and after that they appear in doorways. They walk out into the street, crying eyes, and lonely hollow looks. He grabs a plank that was close to him; it was for the most part undamaged. He stands, the bite wounds of his right leg were for the most part manageable, and did not threaten him. His other wounds would need to be treated before long however.  
  
He limps with a step-tak gait to the destroyed barricades in the middle of the street, the overturned boxes, the wooden spikes and upturned tables. In the shadows he could still see and smell rotting Grimm. He looks down at a tangled mess of human corpses. He says nothing as he settles to his knees before a smaller one.  
  
He looks up as he hears a cry from the gathering crowd. Amongst the bodies do people pick, searching for their dearest dead. They look to see if they have been left behind to wallow amongst the living alone.  
  
He watches Green in particular. She embraces a youthful Faunus about her age, her wife if he recalled correctly.  
  
He watches the reunion. A hate boils in him, as he kneels over the corpse of his son.  
  
Green, the coward Faunus, hugging tight her wife, tears streaming down her cheeks- nary a scratch on her as the coward mumbles disgustingly sweet nothings to her lover.  
  
It is not fair. He decides. It is not fair. He fought. He bled. He showed no quarter to the enemy. He never stopped fighting even when he had only his hands and teeth left, and he sits here now. He has no family, he has no future- he doubt he would ever be able to walk on his ruined leg ever again. He stares at the Faunus couple, unhurt, unbroken. They ran, they screamed, they fled, and only one of them fought- barely. And they got to live. He looked down at the corpse he would bury later.  
  
His son, brave and bold, the last thing to hold him together after his wife was lost. He had been a brave boy that had refused to hide, he had elected to fight, and he died because of it.  
  
He would ask himself what the point of fighting was then, but he knew it- he fought to protect his home. He had chosen to stand at the front knowing that it was a doomed sentence so that his boy might not have to fight. It amounted to nothing. It became clear to him then, that after he buried his son, he would kill green and her wife.  
  
He would do it with a knife, and he would do it before the sun fell again over the horizon. He ran his mangled hand through the hair of his boy, ignoring how his face was chewed off and his guts spilled out over the ground, his hands stiff in rigor mortis still held them in their bloody grip. It was only fair that they died, Green did not fight, her wife hid away. They were not human.  
  
It would take time for the survivors to come together, for order to be restored. What were two more missing and dead people in the wake of a Grimm attack?  
  
He didn’t realize he was crying.  
…  
  
Beowolves.  
  
Savage, clever, fast, unpredictable pack hunters. They are one of the more common types of Grimm on Remnant. They are spread far and wide. They form packs lead by Alphas- the oldest of them. They can be the weakest of Grimm, or they can be the most deadly. Young Beowolves are fleshy, impulsive things, but, as they grow older, they Learn. They gain intelligence; they gain cunning, and malice.  
Yet, they are Beowolves still, they are chaff, they are creatures that are cut down by Hunters, Pilgrims, and even other Grimm. They do not last long; they do not last forever in the cruelty of Remnants wilderness.  
  
There is an exception to every rule. Some Beowolves live. Some manage to find shelter. Some get lucky- and after luck, comes talent, and with talent, comes age, and with age, comes power.  
  
Ancient Beowolves.  
  
They have a name.  
  
A title.  
  
A legend whispered in the northern corners of the Vale.  
  
Hellhounds.  
  
The dark forests, the unsearched places, the shadows where man does not tread. They are said to reside here. Sinfully quick, fangs so long that they could no longer close their mouths, talon claws that scrape the earth and stretch longer than a for-limb. There are many different tales of what they are supposed to look like- none have survived an encounter to report.  
  
Hellhounds.  
  
Unsurpassed hunters. Tracking their prey for hundreds of thousands of miles. Once they have a blood-scent, they are said to walk through the realms of the dead and pass through the homes of spirits to find their hapless victim, tear them apart and drag their remains back to their Pit in the shadows of grand Oaks.  
  
There have been reports. Stories. Cries echoing back to the Council from blood stained forests.  
  
They say that the black oaks in the Evening Sweep- a forest of towering conifers- have dropped their needles. It is said that the beasts that dwell deep within now wake and wander.  
  
They say, that the Death packs are hunting again.  
  
…  
  
It began each night with the howls. Deep echoing and rolling cries vibrating out from the woodlands, orange and red and yellow eyes- pinprick embers burning in the cold of night, prowling outside of the fort. Claw marks- deep and wide- on the exterior walls in the morning, torn up earth by the thousands around the base in a circle. It was stress inducing, the night sentries reported nothing aside from the lights and calls  
  
Then came the madness.  
  
Narcotics, Hallucinogenic, Uppers, synthetic stimulants, airborne neuroleptics, nothing made sense, none of these kinds of drugs could explain why a population would suddenly and unannounced rise up and tear each other to shreds in a single night of massacre, why a population would rip and tear and construct effigies of mutilated flesh, why rescuers would open gates and find... There were no words to describe the hell that they would find- sloughing through gore that reached up to their ankles. Blood, guts, and shit, the secretions of fear and anger. Corpses violated by minds devoid of any reason aside from the urge to break and sunder. People kept telling themselves that this was all a nightmare. Unlike Nightmares, this had no end. It was like hell was spreading out from the woods, casting its evil glare outwards, flensing flesh and snapping bone through vengeful will.  
  
As always, the Grimm became the scapegoat, it was only natural to assign something that did not make natural sense to those fell beasts of black hides and red eyes. There were those who defied that truant reason. ‘It is the end of days’ they would cry, ‘madness has descended upon us’ they would moan. They would be ignored; they would be derided and cast out like lepers. There words were mad insanities. Even though, those words remained- lingering behind when the prophets all dispersed.  
  
The people thought back to the destruction of their CCT in Vale, and the resulting silence from Vacuo. Still, news and strange rumors of degenerate Faunus mutant-men tribes and elite shock troopers from Atlas sporting next-gen weaponry, waging all-or-nothing wars over the ruins of Shade Academy, filtered up from the few desperate and enterprising caravans that make that harsh journey. If these traveling caravans came to the Vale seeking refuge or sanity they would find none: terrorist attacks from an unknown group of recently apprehended individuals made the once open people of Vale wary and cautious, the string of slaughters did nothing to change that- even worse was the wave of Faunus refugees flooding the harbors as they fled from Menagerie- dark tales of a shadow stalking the jungle and murdering their elders. There was talk now of a fiery ghost haunting soon-to-be attacked villages, a spectral herald wreathed in shadow and flame, a leering skull visage leading the soon to be dead into the ground where they would rest forever. Such ill reports cowed men- they made them think that really and truly- the end of days was upon them. Such fear spread anxiety, and such anxiety leads to unrest on a continental scale. Older Kingdoms have fallen for far less.  
  
It was these moments that would either make, or break, a politician.  
  
The Councilors of Vale rarely slept anymore. Their life existed out of a never empty coffee mug, the sludgy last dregs of the pot the only constant in their life along with fear and paranoia, stress was a bedfellow they could not escape as their kingdom began to fall apart around them. It wasn’t incompetence or malicious greed that kept them from acting- the Council of Vale was for the most part actively interested in the success of their kingdom and its people. What kept them from acting was the fact that they now suffered from too many problems all at once, Triage only worked for so long. Grimm attacks, domestic terrorism, loss of Communication, refugees and countless reports from superstitious townsfolk from outside the cities. The complaints just kept on piling up.  
  
Hunters became a rare commodity, spread out and divided, their services becoming more and more in demand from almost every village. The council was spreading its resources thin on a hundred different crises. Time was running short, a decision had to be made. Action must be taken- or at the very least, the appearance of action.  
  
Some wished to deal with the threats looking to undermine their border, a battalion of forces sent to hold against the Grimm. Others looked to the internal strife- thinking instead that the CCT and its recapture were the true objectives. Even more wished instead to repair the damaged infrastructure of Vale as a whole. All options were of great importance, but each of them was impossible given the current state of affairs. They were objectives that could only be accomplished when the thousand minor cuts and wounds that Vale bled from were dealt with. Of these threats, the most pressing- yet still minor- were the concerns of the North.  
  
Rural legends made manifest- the dark woods and their many mysterious pagan tales birthed entity known as The Death Pack, and it feasted on the People of Vale, leaving abattoirs in its wake. The forum was writ, and stamped, the waiting process as expedited, and the notice board already overflowing with requests was pinged and a Hunter team notified.  
  
Dealing with a Grimm threat like this would restore some sense of normalcy, some sense of balance that had been sorely lacking in Vale ever since the fall of Beacon.  
  
Things couldn’t change forever.  
…  
  
  
Life is hard in remnant; that is a universal truth that Elyla already knew but railed against with all the love her young, fragile heart could muster. She was an optimist without repent, she wanted to believe in the power of love and be loved in return. Such innocent purity was usually dashed into pieces for a Faunus the moment they stepped into the world. Elyla as strong of will, however, she didn’t give up, she didn’t let herself get pushed down into the swamp of despair. Sure, she had her ears pulled, her tail yanked, the names and insults, but she pressed on- she made friends.  
  
Then, she became a Hunter, and her friends died.  
  
She is part of the Vale Hunter Team known as Cave. It would be better to say that she ‘was’ part of that team. You can’t be a team and only have two members.  
  
Videl. Indomitable, unflappable, incorrigible Videl. Elyla was glad she survived. Even if it had only been her that had died, the team wouldn’t be the same team- its soul would have been torn out. Videl took the deaths of their comrades hard- it was only natural, but unlike Elyla, she didn’t let it linger inside her. She moved on. Something that Elyla could not do. And now they were in the north, deployed on a mission- because they were the only ones that were available.  
  
There was no job-board, there was just the orders given to them by the council- a desperate transcript pushed through to their scrolls, demanding that they deploy to the northern cities as quickly as possible. There were no further instructions, no explanations; they just needed to get there. It would be around this time that Acura would have cracked a joke, and Calvin would have tried to play the part of the stern leader, then they would all laugh.  
  
That wasn’t going to happen anymore, Calvin and Acura were both dead- Calvin had his throat ripped out by a Griffon; Acura was torn apart by a pack of Beringels. Videl had to knock her out when it happened- Elyla wouldn’t stop screaming. In the end, it was the dead who were the lucky ones- Calvin and Acura, they didn’t have to suffer, they didn’t have to go on living constantly asking themselves what they could have done to prevent tragedy.  
  
The bullhead touched down, Elyla opened her eyes, she tried not to sleep, when she did she had a tendency to dream- and dreams were gateways into memories; they never the good ones.  
  
“Hey, it’s time.” Videl gently shook her, brushing her cheek, Elyla didn’t have the courage to look at her or speak; she just simply nodded and unbuckled the seat harness. The ramp dropped, early evening light filtered into the passenger bay.  
  
North Tarquin, several dozen miles north of Vale City, was the last major council controlled settlement before frontier country. Interestingly enough there was no south Tarquin, nor east or west. The reason it was called ‘north’ Tarquin wasn’t known anymore, even the city’s oldest living residents couldn’t exactly recall a time when there was a distinct reason for it. All that is left was conjecture and legends.  
  
North Tarquin is an escape into the past for the modern folk of Vale. Tarquin is a rare example of tradition and ritual managing to survive in an era of the modernization and instant gratification. This point was hammered home to Elyla and Videl, when they stepped out of the Bullhead and onto a dirt runway. It was not a landing platform made for VTOL craft but honest dirt and stone runway- at the end of it in simple brick-and-mortar hangers they could see Prop-planes with aluminum and wood frames.  
  
“Reminds me of home,” Videl smiled, taking Elylas’ hand and giving it a reaffirming squeeze. The ramp to the bullhead shut behind them. “I took you there once, remember?”  
  
Elyla nodded, the sun was beginning its descent in the sky. Across the two-runway airfield a gas-electric car tumbled up to the airfield entrance on triple-patched wheels.  
  
“They must be here for us.” Videl led Elyla along. The driver stepped out of the car when they made their approach.  
  
He was an older man, heavyset, and middling in his fifties with a square jaw and wide brim hat. Videl expected him to break out a cigar right then and there. The twinkle in his eyes seemed to tell her that he knew what she had thought, and Videl liked him almost at once.  
  
“The names Holsted, Victor Holsted. I don’t suppose that you are the Hunters?”  
  
“That would indeed be us.” Videl said. She took out her scroll and it displayed her academy certification and all. “And you would be this towns Mayor?”  
  
“The Warden, to be more precise. We hold to the old beliefs here.”  
  
“I heard as much,” Videl looked down over the city- the Airfield was situated on top of a deforested hill. The city was encircled by a wall, much like any other city in Remnant. Two-story log houses were spread about the city- walkways and alleys of cobblestone and brick ran between them, at the center of the town was the plaza, a three story cabin-manor of sorts sat regally before a grand well that caught the river flowing through the center of the city. She could see the fast and erratic movements of people scurrying about like ants. “It does seem quite pleasant though,”  
  
Warden Holsted laugh- a deep belly rumbling thing that made Videl smile even more. “Glad you think so,” He gestured for them to seat themselves in the car.  
  
“So you’re here on the Councils orders, yeah?” He asked them once he seated himself comfortably, turning over the ignition and rolling the stubborn steering wheel. “Didn’t know we had need of any Hunters.” That perked Videls interest; the spicy Huntress leaned forwards. “You don’t know either?”  
  
“All I know is that we were to be expecting you hunters, Council never told me why, though.”  
  
“That figures,” Videl sighed. “They just told us to come here, nothing about what we are supposed to be doing.”  
  
“Can only assume it’d be something about the Grimm.” Holsted offered. “That’s what you Hunters are for, right?”  
  
“Pretty much,”  
  
“Hard to think it would be the Grimm though, haven’t had any problems from them for awhile now.”  
  
“Really, you guys haven’t had any attacks?”  
  
“We don’t get attacks that usually, we get the occasional Nevermore or Griffon but the boys in the towers are damn fine shots- we bring them down before they become too much of a bother. Trouble outside of the walls is pretty much unheard of- so long as you don’t go into the forests.”  
  
“You haven’t been having any trouble recently? Anything unusual?”  
  
“Honey, this is the last place you want to ask something like that.” The car pulled off of the trail path that led up the slope to the airfield, and onto a more paved road of cobblestones made for carts and horses that led into the city. Videl and Elyla could now see people setting up balloon lanterns. Tying strings to the end and setting the candle within alight. “We practice the old ways here. Unusual things are normal.”  
  
…  
  
The Warden drove them to the lodge in the city center; the wide plaza with a river running through the middle was a beautiful sight from their shared room on the third floor. They didn’t have much with them, unpacking wasn’t necessary, but they both took the time to change into fresh clothes.  
  
“He seemed nice,” Videl unbuckled her bra, she was careful, the buckle had a tendency to catch in her long brown hair; it was part of the reason why she tied it back into a ponytail with a vibrant red ribbon. “He was just as in the dark as we are, though.” Elyla nodded, the Faunus girl was sitting on the bed, naked, turning her spare shirt over and over in her hands.  
  
“I would call them, ask them for clarification, but you know how that works out.” Videl grimaced, managing to get the bra in place and latch it. She grabbed her shirt and pulled it on- the smell of clean laundry filled her nostrils for a second. “I’d rather not be put on hold for three hours before being led in a damn circle.”  
  
Videl stretched her legs, her pants weren’t too tight nor were they too loose. They were tough leather garments that had served her well. Finally she clipped several pouches and her beloved weapon to her belt. The heavy steel-grey contraption felt good hanging from her hip. “Guess we’ll have to ask around- should be interesting, knowing what the Warden told us.”  
  
She glanced at her partner. She was still naked, pale skin warm in the flickering light of an oil-lamp on the desk opposite the bed. Her peach- blond hair took on an orange hue, the large triangular ears atop her head were crooked forwards like they always were when she was having one of her moods, and she had pulled her bushy tail into her lap, pensively kneading it, her normally vibrant purple eyes half lidded, her mind trapped in a distant and terrible place.  
  
“Hey,” Videl sat down next to her and pulled Elyla into her lap. “Hey, hey,” She hugged her. “What’s eating at you?” Videl already knew.  
  
Elyla shook her head; her eyes squeezed shut tight, lips trembling.  
  
“It’s alright,” Videl ran her hands through the Faunus girls’ hair; she could feel the coiled tension just under her skin. Elyla was at least five years younger than Videl, maybe even more. “Tell me what’s wrong.”  
  
“They should be here.” The half mumbled answer almost escaped Videl, Elyla turned, burying her face into Videls chest; the Huntress could already feel the tears leaking through.  
  
Calvin and Acura.  
  
“They should be here,” She said again, her voice muffled and cracking. She was shaking now. “They should be here, they should be here, they should-“  
  
“I know,” Videl hugged her close, staring across at the oil-lamp, eyes vacant. “They should.” Elyla wrapped her arms around Videl, hugging her back, holding her tight just as Videl did to her, It was like they were trying to ride out a storm together, huddled in a basement, trying to ignore the hurricane raging outside, hoping it didn’t pass over them and carry them away.  
  
“I want them back-“ Elyla choked out through her sobs. “I- I…”  
  
“Me too, sweetie,” Tears streamed down Videls’ cheeks; she stared at the flickering orange flame trapped in the glass oil lamp, the light seemed to gather in her ochre eyes- they highlighted her scars. “I miss them too.”  
…  
Elyla/FoxyFaunus/Female/Lyric- Flamethrower Gloves.  
Fire Aura  
Short, young, peach blonde hair cut short, violet eyes, pale, pants, long sleeve shirt, bracelets, Fox-Ears, Fox-Tail, shy, quite, facially emotive, fidgets, grooms tail obsessively.  
…  
The city is old, and tired, but its spirit refuses to die. Buildings of old brick and eroding mortar, a sense of decay being staved off only through earnest diligence and ritual. It is almost exactly like walking through the past for them- Videl and Elyla- transported back through the years into a more savage, more simple time, where the next day was not so sure, and distant Kingdoms were but afterthoughts for a travel weary soul.  
The cobblestone street clicked under their feet, adding to the cacophony of horse-drawn carriages and the gentle susurrating murmurs of the populace. Quilted robes pulled tight with drawn hoods embroidered with beads ad ribbons, metal rings looped over belts and hand-made sacks slung over shoulders filled with various oddities for bartering and sale.  
Videl already had to fend off the attentions of street-side salesmen, pretty trinkets and baubles thrust in her direction with wide grins and twinkling eyes, 'Pretty rings for the fair lady!' and 'The finest Amarythian quartz this side of the Vale!' and other such catchphrases were made known to her, but she had no need for such things.  
To Elyla it felt as if the crowd was closing in around them the further they walked from the mayoral mansion. The buildings seemed to tower overhead and the people seemed to stretch upwards in accommodation, everyone looking down upon her with a vague or unsolicited look of curiosity or disgust- like she was nothing more than a novelty to be ferried around by a master, it made her feel sick and nauseas, she needed to sit down. Videl noticed her teammates plight easily; she'd always kept a close eye on Elyla- out of affection or sense of responsibility; that was unknown.  
Maybe she didn't want to have a bad mark on her record- it was already pretty well stained as it was, another mark against her could very well see her hunting license revoked, and then she would have to answer to the headmaster.  
She pulled Elyla out of the way of the late afternoon crowd- already it was beginning to thin out as the sun continued to set in the distance. It would soon be night- that would be when their job really began. Videl bought Elyla a caramelized treat, some sort of succulent fruit on a stick and coated with spices and sugar, she pressed it into Elylas' hand, forcing her to hold it with that same gentle smile. "Eat up," She told her, "It'll make you feel better." She promised. Elyla gingerly took a bite, the sweet aroma filling her mouth; she nodded, and took another, chewing more vigorously. "There we go, Videl rubbed Elyla between the ears, just how she liked. "Feelin' better?" She asked.  
"Kinda…" Elyla murmured, they were standing just out of the way of the crowd, near a back alley entrance. Videl scratched Elylas' ears, the orange fuzzy things were sensitive to the girls' emotions, Videls ministrations caused them to relax and fold forwards. The older Huntress couldn't help but smile as Elyla leaned forwards slightly, focusing on her sweet, letting the stress and tension fade away for the moment. It wouldn't last, but in this instance, it was like old times again, when Acura and Calvin were still alive. Videl, she could almost feel them there with her- bickering like usual. It was a happy thought betrayed by reality.  
Videl heard the shouting first; Elyla- despite her Faunus traits- was busy licking her fingers clean of any sugar that might have remained from the sticky delight. Videl cocked her head, trying to make out the words, something churned in her gut. "Someone's starting a fight," Elyla murmured, tugging on Videls' shirt, finally finishing the remnants of her snack. "We should go,"  
Videl had to shake her head at that. "No can do," She sighed. She took Elyla by the shoulder gently, and looked down at her.  
"If something's brewing, I'm not going to leave it sit. That's not the kind of person I am. If you want to stay here…"  
"I'll go with you," Her response was almost immediate.  
Videl walked in front, leading her Faunus comrade down a narrow alley passage into an older part of the already ancient city. Its buildings were made of rotting wood and plaster, cracked stone plazas and thatch wood roofs. Barrels with rusted banding were stacked in lines against the sides of buildings, and there was an old and unused fountain at the center of this forgotten plaza, the water that remained in it was scum-green and upset with flies and gnats and mosquito larva.  
There was also a statue that drew the eye due to its hulking morbidity. Elyla couldn't help but gasp softly- a congregation of people knelt around the Statue- clothed in tattered rags and hoods- but it was not this alone to cause consternation, but merely a step in doing so. The vitriol of the situation came from men and women- angry townsfolk and villagers who heckled and jeered, throwing their condemnations at what Videl could only call monks- hermits, vagabonds. People in ragged clothing or simple garments- the disaffected strugglers of life. They knelt, crouched, endured; praying to a looming obelisk of stone and metal.  
Even at a cursory glance, it came off as big- very big. It stood head and shoulders over the gathered and it had a torso wider than an elder oaks trunk. Videl reasoned that she would only come up to its waist, and even then that was only if she were standing on her toes. The statue looked like a suit of enormous armor. Massive plates sculpted together, and carved with words she could not make out. Bones. Bones seemed to be carved into the metal, some even seemed to be breaking through the plate in places and spreading over the surface in a gross parody of an oversized skeleton shaped into humanoid form.  
A ribcage over its chest, finger bones on its gauntlets, grinning skulls over its knees, a spinal column was draped over the backpack it wore, human skulls sat on either side of it, mouths open as if locked into a perpetual scream. Massive pauldrons guarded its shoulders, on each one were lain the bones of a great birds dead wings. It looked like death, not by appearances alone. Cracked armor, smashed bones, and deep rents covered it. There was more to it however, a part she did not wish to look upon. She did forced herself to look higher.  
Two cracked and shattered lenses- empty holes on a helmet- stared outward. The mouthpiece had been shattered some time ago, and a grinning jawbone sat in its place. Teeth bared in a funerary smile. She was glad to look away from it, when she was not looking; it no longer felt like it was staring back.  
Videl reasoned that it was some sort of effigy to a warrior deity- some lost and forgotten pagan thing. Yet, in its grip was a contraption she had never seen before but recognizable as a gun of sorts. Held in both hands was an oversized cannon, a barrel she could fit her diminutive fist into with a sickle shaped magazine. The weapon mirrored its owner- black and draped with a mausoleum of skeletal remains.  
Ancient Grief.  
She didn't know why but the words came to her mind unbidden, as if placed there by another being. She could place no immediate name to whom might have made it, why anyone would craft such a morbid tribute- and one so cunningly wrought.  
Videl had half a mind to just ignore this whole procession- wanted to, the statue made her feel uneasy, she would have preferred to move on, but one of the protesters- or whatever they were- reached down and scooped up a loose rock, getting ready to heft it at the silent transients. Videl snapped. "Hey!" She shouted, striding forwards, Elyla close behind her. "You put that shit down!" the mob whirled around to regard Videl and Elyla. Videl could tell right off the bat that these people were agitated and in a major way, they scowled, they sneered and glowered accusingly at the two newcomers with clear distrust.  
Videl had her hand on her weapon- Comet- the heavy looking mace reeked of promised violence, and was just a flick of the wrist away as she sauntered forwards. "The hell is this," She barked out her question like it was some kind of order. "I might be new here and everything but I'm pretty sure violence and harassment is a criminal offense no matter where you go." She eyed the crowd, returning each glare with one of her own until they backed down. "Leave these people alone."  
The townsfolk muttered curses under their breaths; they spat and shuffled away- crawling back into the darker corners of North Tarquin. Videl let out a tense sigh, she could be very intimidating when she wanted too- eyes like cut gems and a scowl that could cow a raging bull. Videl wasn't a big fan of such things like lording her strength over others or violence in general. She thought of using fear and power to control other people as a bullies' tactic, she was far to gentle of a soul to think of doing the same. The world would always force her hand to do so, however, it was inescapable.  
The two Huntresses looked at the transients, some were battered and beaten, rocks and sticks had struck them, but they seemed not to care. They were focused- kneeling around the statue like it was some sort of divine idol. "Your help wasn't necessary." One of them stood- a man in an old battered coat and an uncombed bushy beard that reached past his chest. He was the picture book refugee; Videl could almost immediately place his accent from Vacuo.  
"I'm sorry?" Videl asked, she couldn't help but notice that the man was bleeding from a cut on his lip. "You sure looked like a mob was about to beat you guys senseless."  
"It's part of the Trial." The vagrant refugee answered with a shrug. He said it as if it were the answer to everything.  
"The trial?"  
"The Trial." The man drawled, nodding slowly, "It's how he judges us."  
"How he…" Videl cocked her head- she had half a mind to duck out of this conversation, but something about the statue was setting her off. "Who's judging you?"  
"The Phoenix." Again, he answered like it was obvious, like she was stupid for not knowing in the first place.  
"Uh, right." Videl nodded like she understood perfectly, she nudged Elyla behind her. "You know, I never got your name, friend."  
"They call me Duke,"  
"Well, Duke, my names Videl, this here is Elyla."  
"Hunters."  
"Yup." Videl took her hand off of Comet, but she didn't let it stray too far. There was no telling what could happen, when dealing with crazies. The silence stretched for several seconds, no one saying anything, Videl took this as the cue to leave "Well," She turned around, a hand on the back of Elyla- half there to keep her comforted, half there to make sure she was still there. "I guess we'll be going."  
"They'll come tonight."  
Videl stopped; she looked over her shoulder, back at the Transients. "What?"  
"The devils, they're comin' tonight." Duke said, not moving from his spot, again, he was talking like it was obvious.  
"You mean the Grimm?"  
"They wear the red mark. They can only hate. They bring the madness with'em."  
"Back up a bit, you're telling me that the Grimm are going to attack tonight?"  
"Not tonight. But they will come. They'll wait. The night after- they'll attack then."  
"How do you know this?" Videl immediately regretted asking as Duke turned, and looked at the Statue, she was half tempted to ask what it exactly is, what it was to them, she knew better than to go down that line of conversation, however. "Right- of course." She sighed, "Forget I asked." She turned back around, leading Elyla in front of her, leaving the homeless cultists behind.  
"You've lost people, haven't you?"  
Videl didn't pause, instead walking a bit faster.  
"Can see it in you shadow."  
They were in the alley now.  
"You've got to let it fill you."  
Videl pushed Elyla out around the corner, back onto the main street with her following close behind. The sun felt warmer for some odd reason, like it had been behind a cloud for the past few minutes. Videl offered Elyla a shaky smile; one she didn't herself believe.  
"They're just a bunch of crazies, El', ignore them."  
…  
Elyla was awake. She couldn't sleep- she rarely did anymore; she didn't like the dreams that came with it. She was listening, her ears twitching lightly, waiting for that tempo in Videls respiration that came with a deep, dreamless sleep that she wouldn't wake up from.  
She waited for several hours, and then it came. Elyla got up from her bed; she pulled on her clothes and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her as softly as she could. Stealth came naturally to her as she made her way downstairs and outside.  
The moon was nearly full and she could see perfectly by its light and her own natural Faunus vision. Her boots stepped softly, her feet leading her to a place she didn't exactly know, but called her anyways. The streets were quiet save for the occasional drunkard and patrolman. She evaded each with superlative ease, sticking to backstreets, her hood pulled over her head, her ears swiveling at every nocturnal happening: owls, bats, bugs and other nighttime creatures, the scent of smoke in the air from chimneys, the soft breeze carrying the fragrance of the surrounding forests and valleys.  
It wasn't too different from her home, so she didn't understand why she was not put at ease. Even if it wasn't the same with two of her closest friends dead and missing, she should at least still feel a warm comfort. She needed answers. The alleyway closed in around her- almost claustrophobic as she slid around stacks of crates and empty boxes. She found herself in a familiar plaza- old and rundown- replaced by newer more elaborate sets. The Statue was still there, and so was the procession from earlier yesterday.  
Almost at once she could feel the alien pressure from before, the inexorable force that seemed to pan out and lock onto her- probing her mind, investigating her soul, searching for the hidden traumas of her past, testing her will. They sat in a circle around the statue, small candles set before them along with lighters and lamps, small, dismal fires against the night, despite how many there were, they offered no warmth.  
"You came back?" Duke, the vagrant from before, he glanced up over his shoulder as if sensing her. "You're alone."  
Elyla only offered her nod in return. "Brave lass." He grunted. "Come sit."  
The gathered widened their circle some, Elyla shuffled over without needing to be asked twice. She sat down, legs crossed- she was afraid, very afraid. The plaza was silent- unnaturally so, she could only faintly make out the sound of breathing, but aside from that there was no a single memory of the night birds, squeaking mice or unsteady footfalls of drunks. As she looked up at the statue she could only no just appreciate how large this art was. It towered over everyone, eclipsing them in both size and presence.  
For reasons she could not fully explain, she could tell that there was a history to the object- she knew that at once. She could feel the negative emotions rolling off of it, she could feel what it represented: War. War on a cataclysmic and impossible scale; war, and everything that came with it: Despair, hate, pain, loss, death, fear, rage, the relentless slaughter of innocent life, crematorium fields stacked with the dead and dying, the unheard and inconsequential crying of an infant son standing in the puddle of his mothers blood, a thousand billion unremembered martyrs, cruelty for the sake of cruelty, the death of hope, the hysterical laugh of beings from the darkness behind the stars, a final stand against the longest night, the actuation of the soul of a race pushed beyond the brink of rationality and the abandonment of any dreams of peace-  
-and it was reaching- it was reaching out. She could feel it now; she could feel those scarred and mangled hands of broken bone and bitten metal. She could feel them and their spectral wrath, tearing into her head and ripping into her soul like a marble blade coated in hells' own thorns. It saw her- saw into her- saw past all her lies and silence and deflections, it hated her and loved her all the same. It hated her putrid mortal body of inhumanity but loved her noble soul so pure and fragile- so willing to Struggle. She was crying, her soul in the tormented grip of some otherworldly monster- a creation of unreal powers bound to an indomitable soul, she was frying because not only of the pain but because of the suffering such a creature must endure- endure for no other reason then because it must, or all will be laid to dust and carrion. It struggled, it struggled and fought for the sake of those who would stand- it fought on the behalf of those who fought on regardless of reason.  
There was also…  
Something else…  
There was-  
The first howl came, seconds after, so did he next, and then more. Then they all came at once- one after the other in some sort of deluge of hellish calls.  
Yet, Elyla was calm. She looked up, at the sky, the stars, the moon, the soft wisps of silver-grey clouds illuminated by the moonlight- they were all still there. Everything was fine.  
"They've arrived." Duke rumbled. "It's nearly time."  
Elyla looked at Duke, hunched over his candle, staring into its flame. He returned her stare- his old, tired eyes glinting like cut steel in the faint light.  
"You've felt its touch." He told her, and then he stared up at the Statue. "Now you understand."  
…  
Dawn came, the rays of the sun sorely welcome after a night of screams and hell. The night was unnaturally dark- despite the light-giving moon. The guards said that it was as if the forests were stretching across the ground- sending their shadows over the town. Black and red swirled within those shadows- moving shapes, lumbering things that oozed with hate and anger. Hell-calls seemed to carry on the wind. Murderous bloodstained bellows that sunk into the soul of a man and drag out the most hateful desires. Guards screamed at nothing, they shot wildly into the night- they were replaced by other guards who called them mad- only to be replaced the next hour in a similar cycle. Men and Woman tossed and turned in their sleep, they remembered dreams and nightmares long since thought forgotten- they bit and clawed at sheets, they cursed and moaned in their beds, imaginary horrors and angers becoming real. They awoke next morning with bitter recollection.  
They went to work with hate in their hearts, and it showed. Before the sun was up Elyla slipped through the streets- crawling up the stairs with a dread suppressed by an unnatural calm. She didn't understand what was happening. She didn't know how to get the pieces of the puzzle together, how to form the picture she was trying so hard to see. She stripped; climbing into bed with Videl- still snoring quietly, sound asleep- never once knowing her gone.  
She loved Videl.  
Elyla sidled close against her, resting her head on Videls pillow, taking in her familiar scent. She breathed deep- she tried to find a few hours of sleep, but the haunting thoughts kept crawling back. What the homeless men said, what the Statue made her think of. The howls of the night, the strange calm about her like some sort of smothering but protective blanket.  
She drifted into a dreamless slumber, and the morning sun began to rise over a town stitched in fear.  
Videl woke to a knocking on the door to their room- she had to untangle herself from the arms of Elyla, pressed snugly against her, arms wrapped around her waist as if she were some giant pillow. She had to stifle a laugh before sitting up and throwing a towel on over herself. She caught the door before the next series of knocks- Elyla was still asleep- yesterdays events must've worn her out, she presumed. She was normally a very light sleeper. She cracked the door, peering out. She recognized the face of the Warden, Victor Holstead. She thought him a normally cheery, jovial man, his current disposition was grim, and stern, she immediately assumed that something had happened, and in a way, she expected to know what it was. "Sorry for waking you so early," He tipped his hat. "But I'm afraid there has been an occurrence over the course of last night."  
"Was it the Grimm?" She asked. The Warden nodded, he did not seem surprised, it must've been the talk of the town already. "Afraid so," He said. "They came late, first report placed them at the dead of midnight, Guard towers started hearing all sorts of racket coming from the brush just outside of town. Next thing they know is there's full blown howling- red eyes starin' out from the forest, all sorts of shenanigans. Drove some of the guards plum-mad." He shook his head. "I was wondering if you could tell me what that was all about.." He said. "Us country folk don't have the same know-how you Hunters do when it comes to Grimm we aint seen before."  
Videl closed the door behind her, stepping out into the hall, despite the towel being her only clothing, she did not complain, she could guess the severity of the situation just by the Wardens expression alone. "Well, I'll need to know what they looked like, first off." She said. The Warden shook his head, 'Never saw 'em, no one did. They snuck around in the trees like snakes in grass- only ever heard 'em or saw the 'flections of their eyes." He paused for a minute. "Sound like a lotta of them though, don't have a good count on how many, but people keep sayin' that there must've been thousands of 'em out there."  
"That helps, actually." Videl rubs her chin, "I'm going to go ahead and guess its Beowolves," She shrugs, despite her encyclopedic knowledge on the Grimm, it is the best that any Hunter could do with so little given information. "They are a lot like wolves in that way- the howling. They also never hunt alone, they always stick to packs, usually upwards of five or ten, sometimes they cluster into groups of thirty- but that's usually the extent of it unless they are in a horde."  
"What's a Hordes numbers?"  
"Well over five-hundred, sometimes almost several thousand."  
She could actually see the Warden begin to visibly pale; she smiled; that was her reaction the first time as well.  
"You don't need to worry," She said, "If it really is just Beowolves- then this will be a cake-walk. Beowolves are practically harmless- they're like the mosquitos of the Grimm world."  
"You mean, you could that many of 'em?"  
Videl laughs- she has to cover her mouth, not wanting to wake Elyla. "Oh, you have no idea." She sighs, "I've lost count of how many of them I've taken out in one go. All I can say is that it was well into the quintuple digits. Beowolves don't even count as a threat with a city like this- the walls are too thick and too high, all you have to do is man the guard posts with weapons and ammo, and when they attack- just shoot the ones that try to climb over. Easy, right?" She smiles, and the Warden begins to relax, an unsure chuckle managing to work its way out.  
"Guess I got riled up for nothin' then."  
"Happens to the best of us. We'll be out along the walls just in case, never can be too safe- and 'sides, it's what they sent us up here for."  
"Glad to hear it, Sorry for bothering you, misses." The warden smiled, tipping his hat. Videl watched him go, opening the door to her room and slipping back inside. Elyla was up, sitting upright, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Sorry," Videl said, "Did I wake you?"  
"Who was that?" She asked.  
"The Warden, apparently the Grimm came last Night- Beowolves, lots of them."  
"Oh," Elyla didn't seem very surprised; Videl put it off that she must've still been sleepy. "Did anything happen?"  
"No, they just made a lot of noise and stayed in the forests."  
"Is that all?"  
"Yeah, or at least all that's happened so far." She shrugs, dropping her towel and sitting on the bed next to Elyla, she pulls her close. "But you know the Grimm, they never play by the rules."  
"Should we be worried?"  
Videl rubs Elyla between the ears, "Nah," she sighs, "It's just Grimm, we can handle a few Grimm."  
Elyla doesn't say anything, there is doubt in her heart, and there is also fear. She looks up at Videl, staring out the window- a distant look on her face- melancholy and sad. Elyla has seen that face far too often; it's an expression that tears her up inside. Acting on instinct, Elyla rubs up close against Videl, she leans in and grabs one of her breasts and pulls her back into the bed, climbing on top of her- placing light soft kisses until she reaches her face- holding the silence between them with one long passionate one. "Elyla~" Videl squeals once her lover releases, she is smiling again- a rosy tint to her cheeks and brightness to her eyes, Elyla does her best to memorize that look- burns it into her mind. "Why aren't you the naughty one this morning," She wraps her arms around Elyla, pulling her down for another embrace.  
They stay like that, wrapped in each others arms, touching, feeling, loving, together, they stay like that until the sun is high in the sky and morning is gone.  
…  
Blood is the Everything.  
It is what separates the weak from the strong, it is what is taken from The Kill.  
Strength, strength is also the Everything.  
It purges the frail; it gives power to the Strong.  
Power, power is also the Everything.  
It grants the right to live and kill.  
Bones, bones are irrelevant to the Everything save for the One.  
It is what matters- it is the Sacred Everything.  
It must be taken- it must be saved, saved for the Everything, for the Many Bone Pile.  
The Pack hunts tonight-. The Everything has decreed it- the cyphers have been made. The Everything has decreed it. The Red comes next.  
It is almost time- Time for blood, time for bones, time for power.  
The White is rising- the bright is Falling, so comes the Heat- the blood, the anger- madness in the back of the skull- itching teeth, claws flexing, the stench of old piss, old meat, old blood- more, more, more, more, kill, maim, burn, kill, maim, burn, kill, maim, burn-  
It is Time.  
Blood.  
Skulls.  
Throne.  
Slaughter.  
...  
They Come.  
…  
It was two weeks after the Man came, that was when the changes began. The forest deep, ever so quiet, so reserved and self contained, noticed his intrusion. It responded to such arrogance with the ferocity do to those who disrespected the natural balance of Remnant. The branches of the great and mighty black oak swayed and dropped its nettles, and the Hellhounds awoke. Their maws were unable to close- curling fans spiraled out of their mouths like wicked curved knives; their talons scored deep furrows in the earth.  
The Man almost seemed pleased when the Deathpacks accosted him. He spread his arms wide; he tapped the ground three times with an ebony stave. The world tasted of the color of a crystal coated in the blood of a slain innocent, and all became dark.  
The Deathpacks woke- uncertain, angry, confused. The Black Oak called them back to rest, The Man was gone- his heavy treads led out of the forest- but each and every one of the Hellhounds now wore a crimson mark atop their brow- they thought nothing of it- a sign of humiliation that they must now bare.  
Then, the fortnight past.  
Then, the changes began.  
Then, the whispers.  
The hate.  
The Black Oak stopped having any meaning; its voice was drowned out by a greater master. It was a master that promised a cure- an escape from the constant screaming in the back of their primitive minds, a reprieve from the unbridled rage. It was a demanding voice, it was sharp and cruel. It demanded tribute, it demanded blood; it demanded skulls.  
The Deathpack Howls, The Black Oak hisses her fury at the loss of a prized toy now out of her pale lavender hands.  
Now they would run- they would run through the shadows of old pines, the heavy stench of their travels choking the air with their numbers- Old and new settlements, each one flush with life- horrible, stinking, disgusting Life- once an irritation now became an abomination- something that must be destroyed now. The Packs would surge forth- rage overriding generations of adapted reason- a foolish charge- a charge that tore away walls and blew in gates.  
Unnatural power- strength and speed and endurance, pure and unfettered power. Towns were turned into abattoirs, ground up populations were like slurry from a blender- torn up and scattered about like bloody stains of grease. There was nothing left alive- the killing was good- the voices were pleased. There would be silence, there would be calm, there would be the soft patter of viscera dripping from perpetually open maws. There would be the pile of gnawed skulls, the carvings in the muddy blood soaked earth, there would be a sense of Power in the air, the feeling of being watched by an infinitely higher Alpha that is old and cruel and uncaring. It would never last long and that was blessing.  
The voices would return, so would the madness, so would the anger. Their paws would trample the earth, cut up grass and chunks of roots. They would leave behind the hate filled gore-crater that was so significant to the telling of their passing- a pile of skulls in the center of the settlement; carvings caked in drying red earth. What had once been one now became none. There was blood on the wind- there, for them to follow, for them to track down like the savage things they have become. There was always blood on the wind- it was an Everything, that meant it must always be constant, it must always be there, it must always be ready to sift through the laborious tasks such as breathing and eating and sleeping. It was there to purify purpose into a single definite goal" Kill.  
Killing mattered, killing was important. It proved strength, it proved Power. Killing was an absolute Everything. From the death of the weak did the strong grow stronger. At first they were weak- they were of mortal flesh and bone, withering things that did not last, they decayed even with age- improvement only advancing so far. Now they were strong. Now they had feasted. Now they have been gifted with the seed of strength, the mark was upon them all, they had bred, they had multiplied, they were now many, and they were strong.  
It was time to kill.  
They had waited; they had been waiting for the time that was Right. The walls loomed upwards in the distance- they were tall and tipped with spikes. Behind the walls they could Smell- they could smell the blood-things so rich and filled with life and capped with skulls ready for stacking, ready for tribute and offering to the greatest Everything. To wait was Sin but to waste was an even greater Sin. Claws dug into the ground, long furrows in the dirt- snarling mouths whined and moaned at the inaction. The moon was rising- shattered in the sky- it was pale white and pure- disgusting and untouched. It shown its stolen light down onto the city- wrapped in guards and towers, protecting the beating hearts of countless tributes to the bloody red Everything.  
The rage was building; the hate was scouring through their veins and tensing their corded muscular frames. Short black fur bristled and bones creaked and clicked, jaws quivered as time began to creep by like a hateful worm eating maggot slipping through rotting flesh, chewing through fat and sinew, cannibalizing its fleshy, wriggling white brothers and sisters in the search for fresh pockets of blood and meat. They had waited for a day- they had waited for the time that was Right, when the moon rose high and red in their corrupted vision, its surface not so much a shattered thin but more of a heart torn clear of a chest. The voices came strong- they came hard and they were shouting- shouting- so loud and cruel- and with that the first quavering wail shuddered into the night air so stricken with mist. Long, angry, shaking with unreasonable malice.  
The forests surrounding North Tarquin seemed to erupt with fast moving shadows.  
They spilled out of the tree line, darting out from under bushes, long and ungainly limbs skip-hopping them across he open fields. Almost at once there was countering fire- silver darts split through the air and punched through unfeeling limbs, arrows tore chunks of muscle from bodies, cannons mulched hellhounds into chunks of wriggling meat and claws. Withering fire from the walls and watchtowers- beacon lights before the gates and boiling oil was brought to reinforce, the entrances. Within the city proper- alarm bells strangled the once quiet night, screaming, shouting, cries of communal commotion- fear and confusion, ripe mixtures of chemical weakness that filled the nostrils of the once-beasts and drove them to heights of further and greater rage.  
The guards held their ground- crossbows rack, slide, and load wooden bolts as fast as their wielders could pluck them from their slings. It is not nearly enough, and the Grim are upon the walls of the town in seconds. They scream and shriek like beasts devoid of the light for years upon endless years- and only now do they see the sun and they hunger for it. It is not warmth that this horde desires- but blood, fresh from cut veins. Claws near a meter in length carve into wood, they slam home like steak knives into a cutting board after tearing through meat,- the horde begins to climb- bolts and arrows slam home into their skulls, the horde screeches in pain and rage- still they climb, their quarry so close, the pain is worth the reward waiting for them. The alarm bells ring, the populace screams, the guards' shout, the Grimm horde roars. Death has come to north Tarquin.  
…  
The sound of bells, the screaming of men; it cuts through her sleep like a jagged knife stoked in flames.  
Elyla is the first to wake. Her eyes snap open, her head jerks with her body- the feeling of an electric shock racing up and down her spine- to the tip of her tail to the end of her nose. Her heart is racing, beating a mile a minute, cold sweat slinks down the back of her neck and her eyes are wide and panicked.  
Soft orange light beats against the curtains- the light of fires in the distance, the hickory smell of smoke. Elyla sits up, she clutches the blanket close to her chest, it smells of the sweet aroma of sex, it is lost in the rising fear of a prophecy fulfilled- a dark deed whispered in secret. She cannot immediately fathom what is happening- why bells are ringing, but the pieces start to fit together in time as the sleep drains from her mind- she walks to the window, she pads quickly across the cold wooden floor. She pushes aside the blinds and her breath catches almost at once. The light of fires sings in her wide hopeless eyes, , they rage across North Tarquin like the laughing tongues of devils. Sleek shapes flit in and out of their presence, crossing in front of them like a bat across the moon, the silhouettes of beasts born into the grip of slaughter. Human shapes, human screams- she can see packs of what could only be Grimm- she can see a shattered, splintered gate and blood stained battlements along a lost section of the Wall. She can make out red eyes in the fire. There is a throbbing beat in the back of her head she can only faintly imagine. .  
In a matter of seconds, she is shaking Videl, franticly whispering to her, as if a voice any louder will awaken the horde to their still unknown presence.  
There is a scratching at the door. There is a smell like fresh blood mixed with old meat.  
The snuffling of a hungry beast.  
…  
The night is cold, but it is warm around the feet of the Phoenix. Its heat is a fighting heat. The call to war- to struggle. Its presence meant only one thing- Death is coming, a death that cannot be prevented through the strength of mortal man alone, but to give up hope and accept fate is only to invite that death upon ones self. To struggle, to hold to the tatters of hope, that is to give birth to the way of the Phoenix, and invite victory.  
The screams of beasts, the sound of wood splintering in the distance followed soon by the braying of hounds and gurgling cries of men- that was the call to Duke, the signal that he required.  
The vagrant opened his eyes. Her leaned back and rolled his shoulders. His knees were stiff and sore from the prolonged hours and days spent kneeling in supplication to this dark idle. Around it, he could see others stir. The forsaken and misbegotten, the disenfranchised sons and daughters of life, convicts escaped from prison, nobles reduced to rags, sons and daughters of drug addicts, the simply unlucky, they were all here, gathered in numbers that filed up the square of the rotting district.  
He stood now, gazing up at the Phoenix, its cold metal and bone sculpt was as imposing and still as ever. Like a statue of a devil in a church courtyard- it stood out. It always chilled him to look directly at it.  
He remembered its call, the day it spoke to him through the whispers in the back of his mind- the whispers that drove him to insanity, the whispers that brought him to the pain of his current existence and the separation from his family. . He was panhandling, wandering the back streets, muttering to himself, retelling his life story over and over again, the only audience his own feverish mind. He was counting change in this very plaza, separating the various coins into stacks and piles, when the whispers began in earnest. He tried to bite them away at first- nipping at the air like a mad raccoon at invisible snakes trying to burrow into his mind. Their fangs bit deep into his head, delivering their venom—and for the first time in years- he could think. He could breathe. He could let the tension roll out of his shoulders.  
And then the whispers came back.  
Different from before, cajoling, demanding, words- but not words. Subtleties, images, frequencies and pictures. Emotions transmitted by a means yet unknown but always there. The same sort of enigma that allows one to perceive a chill in the air despite the humidity, the feeling of being watched despite being alone, the sourness at the back of the throat when walking through a graveyard at night when the moon is full. The eeriness of still water and an overcast sky. The smell of rain after dark. It drew his eyes, away from his petty cash to the dark corner of the plaza across the way.  
A shaded corner that seemed to remain incongruous and underpopulated aside from moldy boxes and cobwebs. The sun never seemed to reach there; refuse and dust seem to accrue in great quantities. It was the first time he looked at it and the old well just a few feet away. It was the first time he saw It, then. The statue. The Phoenix. The struggler. The icon of Resistance. It's eyeless helmet seemed to bore into him. It drew him closer, his limping gait carrying him for what seemed like miles uncountable until he stood before it in the shadow of old buildings. Staring up at its bony, uncaring mask. It gazed down at him without looking, and suddenly- it entered him. It entered his mind- his shattered psyche, pulling, tugging, sifting through and remolding him into something far more beneficial to the continuation of human life. He became what he was now- something lost when the madness set in, something he was before but not yet realized in the matters of potential.  
So came the others- skulking vagrants from all walks, answering the hissing call of the Phoenix that echoed in their dreams, the whisper on the winds. They came when it called, and Duke whispered back the name that they would be called by. 'The Touched.'  
And now came the time to Fight, as it said, it would be.  
"S' time." Duke nodded, his flock looked to him with eyes that spoke of their determination. "The marked are here." Duke shuffled over to one of the various stack of moldering crates laying about the run down plaza. He let a short handled axe fall into his grip from behind one of the crates, and he began the laborious process of tearing it open.  
"They've got the hate in them, they've got the sickness. It's going to spread." The top came away in a spray of damp splinters and chips of wood. A sack clinking with every shift was inside, he turned it over, lettings its metal contents spill out into the plaza- glimmering steel and wood, knives, short swords, picks, axes, hammers and daggers- pilfered things from shop stalls and unguarded armories. The weapons of revolution. "S' time to struggle." The Flock took to them, snatching up weapons, handing them off to each other, the cries of beasts and men grew closer in the distance.  
…  
The Grimm beast breaks down the door in the same amount of time it takes for Videl to bring about Comet and fill its skull with Flechette. The In the time it takes for it to scream, Videl spins Comet around and hammers the darts deep into its skull, the steel needles gouge its brain into pieces, and only then does it lie still, and only after repeated impacts.  
The black blood of the once-Grimm coats Videls' naked body, she is hardly even breathing from the exertion, she swings Comet twice, flexing her muscles as she still goes about the means of waking herself. There is a scowl on her lips, her eyes are hard. Elyla had already told her everything she needs to know. There is the smell of blood in the air, and there is a monstrous looking Beowolf lying dead before her.  
Videl doesn't even bother with getting all the way dressed, she throws on the pants she wore yesterday and her shirt, she chucks on her shoes even as she is walking out the door, stepping over the corpse- its blood seeping into the carpet. Elyla stumbles out after her; she is hopping on one leg, trying to tie her shoe, trying to pull on her coat. The usual banter between them is gone, there are Grimm to kill, but Videl can feel the anxiety radiating off of Elyla like a heat lamp. She can understand where it is coming from and why, this was their first mission since Calvin and Acura met their end.  
Videl slows her pace, she falls into step next to Elyla; the Faunus girl looks up, finally forcing her shoe on. She was always so quiet, so docile and caring about whomever she met. Some could call her clingy, but Videl didn't see it that way. Elyla could be strong- is strong, always had been. She was sensitive- that much was clear, but she could fight through the pain, she didn't let it debilitate her like it would others. It could break her down though, it could get in the way, the little things she could brush off- but when it accumulated…  
Videl rustled Elylas peach-blonde hair, she forced a smile despite the situation. "Hey," She said, "Don't worry, I'll be alright." She cupped Elylas chin, made it so she was looking her in the eye. "Just focus on yourself, its just some overgrown Beowolves." When she didn't get an answer, Videl moved her hand up and flicked the tip of one of her ears- this got her a smile, one of her favorite things to see on Elylas' face outside of the bedroom.  
That smile vanished the moment they entered the main floor, and the blood slicked lobby greeted them with open arms and corpses bared for all to see.  
"Maidens breath…" VIdel cursed, Elyla froze behind her for a second- she mustered her strength, she didn't freeze; that was as much as Videl could ask her to do. Videl grabs Elyla by the hand and pulls her through the carnage; she hesitantly recognizes the body of the Warden- split open and head torn off. She tries not to notice that not all of the corpses in the room are from the work of beasts- she tries not to notice the knives, the stakes, the bolts and arrows and then they are out the door- into the fray.  
They are attacked almost at once- Leaping over the canal, a swift angular shape, teeth curled up and out of its mouth like rose thorns- claws clicking against pavement, red hued drool and fiery eyes. Videl met it with the fanged blunt end of Comet, the Flechette spewing mace cracked it across the skull, pure pulverizing fore reducing the head of the beast to bits and pieces. .  
There are more.  
A pack of them- loping across the bridge, Videl flips Comet around, the butt end extends and a trigger flips down- she works the trigger, the semi-auto Flechette launcher bucks in her grip with expertly controlled recoil- tight cones of fire are maintained with every shot and the steel darts tear into the pack with brutality that would pulverize any normal Beowolf.  
These are not Normal Grimm.  
"Videl!" Elyla shouts, she follows her words up with action as the leader of the pack stumbles momentarily- looking to fall- and then exploding into movement, blood pouring from its side with every movement. It leaps, claws extended, jaws hinging open well over ninety degrees; Videl swings Comet up as she drops to one knee- the head of her mace crushes whatever served for its chest- bones and blood erupt out of its maw, this kills the Beowolf- it does nothing to stop the other two.  
Fire erupts from Elyla's hands like a fountain of light. A swirling vortices of heat and sound blast out from her palms and engulfs the two Grimm in agony- they are burnt to a cinder in a matter of second; only when two charred skeletal remains hit the ground and shatter does the conflagration stop. Elyla lowers her hands- the Pilot light on her twin dust spewing gloves tapers off. Lyric is silent for the moment. Videl spits, she kicks the body of the Beowolf she killed, noting the larger size, the fangs, the claws; the ragged scrape of marks on its bony forehead steeped in red.  
"Lets get moving, we got a city to save."  
…  
  
North Tarquin was breaking apart. Buildings were smashed to pieces by the rages of beasts fueled by the raw red rage of a Dark God from behind the stars. Blood quenched fires burning uncontrolled- the air tasted of burning copper and scalded meat. What wasn't covered in bodies was repainted red. Streets became impromptu battlegrounds, it was in the inner cities where the fighting was the most intense, where it became a massacre. Guard levies were raised from nothing, helmets slammed on and spears grabbed from racks, old timber wood polls slightly rotted from disuse. The moment they stepped out of the safety of indoors they were cut down- the blood red scent in the air- the flashing eyes and slobbering teeth, a head flew here, a spine was ripped out there…  
They dragged the bodies through the streets. Packs of hellhounds, loping through the alleys, smashing wooden barricades aside with brute force savagery, ripping into the feeble flesh that cowers behind them, clinging to each other for strength they do not possess.  
They die in their droves- the men and women and children of North Tarquin, they are cut down and pulled apart, limbs rent and bones sundered. Organs spill out of gaping chest wounds, intestines are stretched along the lengths of street even as their owners desperately try to pull them back in- screaming all the while, disbelief and fear pumping blood out of their gut like a broken fountain head.  
Children are like sweet treats- Ripped away from the bosom of their mothers chest the beasts swallow the smaller ones whole- burning them alive in the acid stomach of mangled organs and flesh- each howl punctuated their drowning screams- it is a sight to behold, the slaughter of innocents- the madness descending like a great red haze.  
The Hellhounds, the death packs, they howl, they cry, they tear up the streets with there savage claws, hunting down the last trace remnants of violence that is worth to them, Guards with spears and swords and cudgels and axes-, they run as rampant as the beasts.  
Tears of red stream down their faces- blood flecked lips fresh with the vita from burst vocal cords, there is a madness in the air, it is a grave thing that permeates the senses- throbbing like an off-tempo heartbeat. Videl and Elyla think they can just barley hear it, as they float over rooftops like soft clouds moving at speed.  
"Down-left!" Videl shouts and pivots, she jumps off the ledge of a roof, propelling herself to the one adjacent, she spins over the gap, Comet flips in her hands, she clears the breach, and pulls the flip down trigger with a light nudge that sends a spray of steel finned darts out of the end of Comet like a blister of a quills from a forest beast coated in fire. She lands, rolling up the roof and already sprinting, kicking off the top and glancing behind her- Elyla, jumps the gap- the shred remains of two beowolvs below her, she nods to Videl- her kills confirmed. "More up ahead," Videl calls back, she thumbs in a new cartridge for Comet, the dust crystal shell casing fits snugly into the well-mag, some of her blood greased the shell, the cut along her arm trickling down across her hands. She ignored it for now.  
There was another pack ahead, a town park played host to flashes of steel in the faint light, resistance of some sort- the snarls of the beasts, their numbers, and the screaming all confirmed it. There was always screaming no matter the part of North Tarrquin.  
"Elyla, check your targets on this one!" Videl shouted, vaulting off the roof edge, her Aura propelling her high and fast, a lazy twist, and she was already mapping targets in her head, the movements becoming clearer as she drew close. Before she hit the ground she was already flipping Comet around, the barbed spiked head came sailing low and fast, intercepting a Grimm beast just two-steps after she made her entrance.  
The Huntress felt Comet come down like the astrological wrath it was so aptly named after- meat was smashed apart, bones became like twigs and snapped, organs ruptured from the kinetic shock alone, the added weight of her aura augmenting the blow made bones into dust. Anything hit by such a force should have been dying- mewling on the ground, hemorrhaging blood like a burst water main leaks- it should not have been twisting around, jaws open wide- a crazed light in normally dark and pitiless eyes- trying to take her hand off.  
Videl swore, tearing Comet free- blood, fur, and meat trailing after- she caught the receiving end of a razor claw before she can call up her Aura again- the talon split open her shoulder like it was brittle wax in the face of a welder's torch. She swore again, the flensing razor of the Grimms claw was like the incarnation of pain put upon her yielding flesh- she didn't have time to swing around, not the finesse, nor the speed- her knee hit the ground under the weight of the blow- she improvised.  
She hit the catch on the butt of Comet, the tubular haft of the weapon extended, the safety flicked off, she hit the trigger with her thumb- Comet bucked once- twice in her grip. The Grimm that wounded her was turned to slurry as metal darts a quarter of an inch thick and three inches in length turned its body into a macabre puppet jerking on twitching strings.  
Elyla hit the ground, she rolled and was up and running in an instant- The look of fear and worry on her face was almost too much for Videl too look at, Videl forced herself to stand- and act that was disconcertingly hard. Just how badly did she get hit? She thought it was only a scratch.  
"D-Don't move!" Elyla wailed; Videl would have to decline that request for the moment.  
"Brace." She snapped, she grabbed Elyla around the waist- an action that she was sure was tearing tendons in her arm, and she jumped.  
The Grimm was fast; But Videl was wise to them now. Meter long claws dug into the ground that Elyla had just been standing on, some inane whine of rage erupted from its slobbering maw, Videl had enough thought to put a spread of darts into it, but the recoil would screw her landing. She hit the rooftop hard, the impact sent a jolt up her legs- but that didn't matter, Elyla was okay- and she needed to focus.  
"Videl- Videl!"  
"I'm fine, fine, it's alright."  
"No you're not!" Elyla was on her like a mother cat and her kittens, Her fingers prodded what felt like fire on her back, tracing downwards- further and further- 'just how long was it?-' until her fingers stopped near the base of her spine, just above her ass. "I need to stop the bleeding- Videl? Videl?"  
"I really hate doing this," Videl tore the ripped pieces of her shirt away; her bra came off with it- fucking Grimm must have gotten the strap. That pissed her off even more; it was a good brand too. Videl could feel blood slicking down the back of her legs; she was going to hate herself in the morning.  
If she lived to see the next morning.  
"You're not- Videl, please just hold on!"  
The pain was starting now, the adrenalin high beginning to fall away with a cessation of combat for the mere moment. "Don't have many other options," She snapped, and so she let her Semblance flow.  
Twisting around her hands, like locks of silk- glowing red wires, curling up from the tips of her fingers, coalescing together, and eventually floating on there own, swaying like snakes.  
Videl flicked her wrist, the strands speared out and wrapped around, they stabbed in and burrowed into ripped flesh. She nearly passed out for a moment, her vision blurring, agony ripping up her spine and pounding her brain into submission, Elyla was holding onto her with desperate strength. It was enough to keep her conscious, enough to keep her focused on drawing the parted flesh back together, vibrant strings as sharp as needles tightening, stitching, sewing her back into a whole.  
"Done-" She gasped, her knees were weak, Elyla was holding her up entirely, the Faunus girl didn't even seem to notice her weight, Videl noticed that she was screaming- tears running down her cheeks. She had a spot of trouble trying to make out what she was saying.  
"Elyla-" Videl grabbed her partner by the shoulder, I'm fine now- Focus."  
It was enough to steady her, Elyla stammered an apology and fell quiet. Videl took a breath, she steadied herself and twisted her range of motion- her back felt like it was splitting apart but her Semblance- the ability to create near-indestructible monomolecular wires- held the wound on her back without a great deal hindering her movement. But it was just as she feared, she was absolutely sure that the Grimm had torn through muscle, it had cut deep- scoured her skeleton even. It was only thanks to an egregious use of her Aura that she was holding herself together. Literally.  
"Elyla, you're going to need to work solo for a bit." Elyla took the request better than Videl expected her to, she cut Elyla off before she could refute. "This is an order, look, the town's getting destroyed, and we're the only ones here who can make a difference. You need to get everyone out, or into a safe house of some sort. There's too many grimm, and they're too strong." She cupped Elya's face and pulled her into a kiss, brief but tender. "I need to rest for a bit, don't worry, I'll be right behind you."  
"VIdel…"  
"Don't give me that look, this isn't the first time I took a hit like this. Just don't make the same mistake, keep them at range, that's your specialty."  
"But what if they find you, they're everywhere,"  
"I said not to worry about me, I'll find some guards that are still kicking and support them, and we'll cover each other. Just like what you and me do."  
Elyla was struggling for words, the tears had stopped but she was still conflicted, her eyes trying their level best to break Videls heart with their wide innocence and fear, It was killing Videl not to just give in. "Get moving, foxy-buns, those people aren't going to save themselves."  
Elyla took one last look at Videl. Her pained smile and sad eyes lost of their former vibrancy that she had known from back when their team was whole.  
This was Videl; her friend and lover.  
It would be the last time she ever saw her as such ever again.  
…  
It took a least three spears to bring one of them down, anything less and they would tear right through the haft.  
"Keep em' in line!" Blood and spit, shredded flesh and shattered bones, this was the existence that the Touched suffered in.  
They made their homes in the tight winding alleys of North Tarquin, living amongst the rotting and decayed stone masonry. They scavenged every day, begging for scraps and doing what they could in order to get by.  
Now they were fighting.  
They formed ranks, huddling together side by side in the alleys leading to the plaza. They wielded make-shift spears; long poles with knives, drills, even shards of metal taped and glued to one end and un-metlable Steel beams to the other. They fought back the backs with blisters of jagged ends, hearts filled with hope, and sacrifice. Their dead littered the alleys like rats.  
"Wind' the roofs!" Duke called out again, noting the more enterprising of the Blood-Mad things scaling walls in order to gain vantage over the Touched and their picket of spears. Their scowling maws peered down at them from above, and Duke felt The Eye's upon him as he re angled his make-work spear. .  
There was a flash of light, a plume of fire, engulfing the Beast and stripping fur, flesh and fat from its bones, blowing away the meat until only a charred skeleton was left. Landing gracefully atop the roof where the beast once stood was a face that Duke knew he would see again- there was a reason for their ley-lines crossing, there was a reason for everything, he was sure of that now. The truth was just behind the curtain that twisted the colors of reality.  
The Faunus girl looked down at them from her perch, her eyes widening slightly in recognition in which Duke nodded to. Her place was not yet here, her time had yet to come. She hesitated for a moment more, observing their defensive position, their weapons, their commitment- and then she was moving onwards, bounding from rooftop to rooftop in search of those who needed her prowess.  
"Keep fighten' lil' girl," Duke wheezed, lunging with his makeshift spear, running one of the snarling things through- it twisted and writhed on the spear, it's jaws clamping shut on someone's leg before another three pikes drove into its side and silenced it. "Keep on fighten'."  
In the darkened plaza behind them, an Ember stirs.  
…  
She can really feel it now, the pain; the scathing claws of ripping agony tearing up her pack and threatening to spill over into her mouth in the form of wild shouts of despair. She doesn't let it, though, she fights it back, bites down hard and mulches the pain into something that is unimportant. Videl takes it, and makes it her Bitch.  
She crushes the doors lock, smashing into the long abandoned house, the braying sounds of Beowolves- if they could even be called that- growing ever closer- mingling with the sounds of mankind fighting back against the hordes to the thump of some primal drumbeat that echoed just under the thin silk of reality.  
She jams the door shut, she pulls over several shelves and book cases, her body screaming as she does so. She pants, leaning against the wall, calming the hellish shouting in her head as sweat beads across her face, sliding into her eyes, stinging, causing her more pain then she needs. She staggers upstairs, a blood smear across the wall wshe leans against. She finds a room- a childrens room by the looks of it, a cradle empty in a corner, a bunkbed with cotton sheets. She manages to barricade the door before she slides down against the wall, smearing the furnished wallpaper with her crimson gore. It should have stopped bleeding by this point, her stitches- the mystical wire or her semblance- should have pulled the wounds tight, but instead blood leaks through.  
She can feel it pooling inside her. Her blood, leaking from muscles now torn, deeper than her stitches would reach, internal bleeding, something she had not the power to fix. It was like hot water spreading under her skin, under her fat, leaking onto her organs and coating them with red. It wasn't supposed to have ended like this, alone in a house, waiting until the Grimm found her or mortality claimed her.  
She wondered how Elyla would find her body, would it be pristine, pale, and weighted down with the heaviness of deaths cold claws? Or would she find the remains of a shattered, torn up body savaged by the Grimm, recognized only by the battered heap of metal that was once Comet? Would Elyla even survive the night?  
Now, isn't that a sight. A Huntress like questioning how she would die. Who would have thought that out of them all, it would be you, Videl.  
Videl began to giggle; a burbling laughter coughed up from her stomach, causing her shoulder to lurch painfully, the stinging bite of the savage beowolf never truly leaving her for even a moment's respite. A second free of agony was apparently too much to ask for, and so was silence, even within her own mind.  
Lying down, mewling like a pup, bleeding like a stuck pig waiting for the end to come, waiting for some greater beast to end your misery. Isn't it pathetic?  
It is, it is pathetic. She was a Huntress with enough kills and missions under her belt that she could qualify as a trainer, she's gotten the offer to be one plenty of times.  
You never accepted. You know what it would mean.  
No more missions. No more hunting. Just days spent putting little brat through school, telling them that they were 'doing just fine' and 'had potential' and then sending them off to get killed by a flock of Nevermores. That wasn't her style.  
Then what is 'your style?' Is this it? Dying like a weakling runt?  
It isn't, it shouldn't be, and she never was supposed to go down like this in the first place. She was supposed to retire with Elyla, get married, and move to Menagerie so Elyla could live without fear of persecution.  
Liar. You knew that was just a pipe-dream. Hunters don't retire.  
No. No they don't.  
What happens to them.  
"They…"  
Say it.  
Her lips move.  
SAY. IT.  
"They die." She found it funny, and she began to laugh, it hurt, and she couldn't feel her legs anymore.  
Get up.  
She didn't move.  
Get. Up.  
She pushed at the floor, tried to get into a kneeling position and then stopped.  
GET. UP.  
She held onto the pain that sparked in her back, her neck twitched and she felt the taste of copper in her mouth and smelt sulfur in her nose. She bucked upwards, flying to her feat as an explosion of color burst behind her eyes.  
Aren't you a Huntress? Aren't you a warrior? Are you content, bleeding out on the floor of some peasants hovel?  
"N-no…"  
Then go now and fight, face your death with pride or end it now and pull the trigger, blow your head to pieces and let the maggots-god have his feast.  
"I..." Videl shook her head, letting the nausea flow through her. "What am I…" She clutched her face, covered her eyes; leaned against the wall again. "I'm talking to myself…"  
Elyla is probably dead. You let yourself be left behind so she could go on and die. A real Huntress wouldn't do that. Would they?  
She let Comet smash the desk out of the way, she pushed open the door- nearly fell down the stairs before she realized what she was doing and stopped, leaning against the bannister for support. Her back tingled. "El' is fine, she's quick on her feet… She's…"  
She's just a novice. She can barley control her Aura. Kelvin and Acura objected to her joining. They knew she was weak.  
"No- No, why would I think that- What's wrong with-"  
Are you even a Huntress?  
"Of course I…"  
Then try acting like one and Kill Some Grimm.  
"I…" She was moving again, one foot at a time, descending the stairs, watching the front door to the house grow closer with every shaky step.  
Kill.  
She pushes away the barricade, pulling piece after piece.  
Hate.  
She's pushing open the door.  
Obliterate.  
She can smell the bloody hounds.  
Never-ending.  
She's running now, pain in her back forgotten, a pounding in her head.  
Eternal-war.  
She's running towards the hounds. She is crying.  
…  
  
She was only six when she saw her first grimm. It was an Ursa, It as tearing apart a family of Faunus. It was just outside of Vale city, a shanty tow had started up, it was filled with refugees from Mistral, all of them Faunus. They were arriving by ship, trying to escape the purges that had be taking place in that Kingdom at the time.  The refugees settled outside of Vale, thinking that proximity alone to the city wall would protect them from the Grimm. They were wrong. The guards only watched as the Grimm came, and slaughtered them all. Elyla stood on the walls, and watched them come every night at dusk.  
  
It chilled her to the bone. She saw the Ursa- big, black and coated with grey-white plates of bone. It had a limp Faunus boy no older than she was in its jaws.  
  
She didn’t know what became of the shanty town after her family moved away, leaving Vale city in one of the Vacuo caravans. As she grew older, she kept on thinking back to that singular event, the fear she felt, the scene of dread, thinking that she was only safe because she was born on the right side of the wall she was standing on, using it to look down at those less fortunate than her, and how it meant that she got to live while they died.  
  
Years later, she was back in Vale City with a huntress badge on her shoulder, fresh from signal academy, standing on that same wall. She could make a difference this time, she had weapons, and she had the skills needed to fight the Gimm.  
  
Her first mission was a complete disaster. She nearly wound up being killed, and one of her teammates lost his leg to a nevermore. It was her fault, of course, she had frozen up, failed to act, her teammate pushed her out of the way and lost a limb because of her failure to act. She should have stopped there, called it quits and gone back to the caravans, gone to work as a whore or stripper- put her body to some use, as her siblings would say. She was a brothel-baby; after all, dancing dirty was in her blood. She didn’t stop, and now she was here, skipping along rooftops as the city burned, her best friend and partner bleeding out, surrounded by grimm never seen before. It wasn’t fair, but Elyla knew from experience that life had a habit of tearing apart fairness.  
  
At other times it was brutally fair. Elyla was now alone, nobody more to hide behind, no one else to pick up the slack, no one to account for her weaknesses and failures. She now had to stand on her own. One of the tiles on the roof she landed on slipped, she stumbled, almost catching herself, but not before he tripped off the edge, hitting the ground, and rolling, coughing the air back into her lungs. The sound of claws on stone grabbed her attention, and he eyes grew wide. Both to the front and rear, Grimm creatures stalking down the narrow cobblestone street. They glared at her with rage-red eyes like hollow flares in grinning skulls. Their teeth curled out of their mouth, their bony bodies jerked and limped along. They opened their maws and screamed, a sound like metal against a chalkboard, it didn’t sound of this world- reverberating through and beyond reality through some sort of penumbral existence.  
  
Elyla met them the only way she knew how- with fire and flame.  
  
Lyric slid over her hands, folding into place like a pair of ivory and crimson gauntlets, she rolled her wrists, the last pieces settling into place and slotting home- the last piece always the ever important Dust Crystals. The blood stained Beowolves charged her at last, she threw up her hands and tensed the ignition coil with a finger.  
  
Red-hot flames burst from the tips of her fingers, smashing into the wall of flesh and fur with crackling malevolence, burning away flesh, searing bone, the acrid stench of burned fur and boiling blood. She could see their eyes, glaring out at her with one last evil glimmer of malice before being snuffed out by the roaring conflagration that was her weapons discharge.  
  
Elyla spun on her heel, and incinerated the ones behind her just as easily, the narrow streets playing to her advantage- for now. She dropped her hands, trembling, she always trembled, no matter how easy the fight went in her favor, the jitters were a natural part of her existence, the adrenalin pumping through her, the rush that some craved she hated.  
  
She was on the move again, Elyla hop-skipped up the side of a building, finding her footing on the slick soot stained shingles, and darting across them, her tail playing out behind her, catching the lights of north Tarquins death. She wondered if there was anything she and Videl could have done to prevent it. Was fate really so cruel as to condemn these people to death without any real way to fight back?  
  
She pondered no further, too morbid were those thoughts, she let them drift away, replacing her qualms with a sense of duty. She tried not to hesitate this time- she hit the street, her jump carrying her far into the fold of a ravaging pack of Grimm. She was at the center, there was maybe around twenty of them, maybe even more that she couldn’t see.  
  
They whirled around, screaming and howling- they were monstrous. She found it hard to think that they were Beowolves; the Beowolves she knew were nothing like this. These things were rabid gutter-grime hellion things lost of any sanity or reason a creator saw fit to bestow a Grimm with. These beasts were nothing like that- they were wild, untamed, and brutally effective killers. The corpses strewn about this part of Tarquin were testament to that fact.  
  
They were on her in a matter of moments, leaping up- claws extended, razor blade maws open wide.  
  
She took a breath.  
  
She popped her Semblance.  
  
She clicked Lyric together.  
  
There was a spark.  
  
The air around her erupted into a seething storm of hellfire.  
…  
  
Videl brought Comet up and smashed it back down; the mace turned the Beowolves skull into paste, brains and spinal fluid poured out over her hands and weapon. She hiccupped, bile leaking out of her mouth, and smashed Comet down again until there was only the ruined stump of spine left staring back at her. It was the last one. Only now does she let herself fall, she sits and chokes down another hiccup, she forces her stomach into cooperation, she catches her breath- the ashes coat her mouth and sour her tongue.  
  
There is naught but carnage around her: the ruined remains of those she had been sworn to protect but too slow to save, the blood-soaked street that once was rife with the movements of life, then there is the pile of the several dozen or so broken bodies of Grimm that she sits on- each one dead in trying to turn her to ruin, only to be brought low instead. The blood seemed to actively pool around her morbid plinth. She finds herself staring. She claws at the ragged stump of her left hand, the drizzle of red from her torn veins and ruined flesh had stopped, and so had the pain.  
  
More.  
  
“There isn’t any more.”  
  
There is always more.  
  
She dismounts her throne of corpses. She holds Comet with the three fingers she has left on her right hand. Several blocks away, a firestorm erupts into the night sky, a flash of heat like the feeling of thunder curls through the streets, sending soot and ash whirling into the air. She can smell flesh newly burning on the winds that carry the roar of fire. She can see the angels in the embers now- or are they devils? Were they always there? Is it the madness?  
  
The ash stained breeze blows against Videl, she drags her way through the streets; embers sting her bare skin and gather in her wounds. “Elyla.” She murmurs, vacant eyes regarding the storm of fire that pillars up into the sky, breaching the oppression of the dark clouds.  
  
Coward.  
  
“No,” Videl shakes her head. “No. Don’t you dare-“  
  
She fights from afar; she burns her enemies instead of facing them eye to eye.  
  
“Not her fault, she’s not good at close in…”  
  
Then why bother with her if she can’t take care of herself?”  
  
“It’s fine, stop- just stop- I need to stop-“  
  
She is weak.  
  
“No, she’s-“  
  
She only lives because you let her live.  
  
“Shut up, shut up- just shut up!”  
  
She’s not even a proper Huntress, just some pet that you fancy.  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
You limit yourself. You ignore your potential. She is a chain around your neck.  
  
“Shut up!” Videl howls through grit teeth, blood leaks from her lips, dribbles from her nose. She doesn’t even react when a pack of Beowolves screams at her from the second story of a house, claws smashing through a window to lunge down at her.  
  
“Shut up!” She screams again, she flips Comet in her hand, hooks her thumb into the release catch and blasts the first one out of the air with a bundle of flechettes, she catches the one behind it with a brutal swing of Comets head- the third one smashes into her with its bony black head.  
  
A half digested meal explodes out of her mouth, splattering her attacker. She doesn’t scream, she doesn’t even acknowledge the pain- for it is strangely absent from her mind. It is there- it is there alongside the screaming agony of her broken legs, her torn off fingers, shattered ribs and her missing left hand, but it is something that she doesn’t concern herself with. The angels and demons in the embers tell her not to, the whispers in the back of her head tell her that its fine.  
  
Her sick trickles down the Beowolves flank. It rips into her, razor claws tearing chunks of meat from her side. She returns the favor. Ratcheting Comet hard she pumps the rest of her weapons magazine into its face- the steel darts punch through its gullet and out its haunches, tearing bits of muscle and organs and bone with them- she nearly blows it in half length-wise. After the sixth shell it collapses, the insane vitality that somehow held it together through five shells and let it tear out her liver leaves it with a death rattle. She doesn’t stop until her weapon is empty.  
  
More  
  
She begins to walk again. She steps over the body of some urchin boy. She doesn’t even notice.  
  
They come screaming down the street this time. They flicker through shadows, the click-click-clack of their claws against the stone, a stampede of the Bloody and betrayed.  
  
Kill them all.  
  
Videl readies Comet, no time to reload- she doesn’t want to anyway. It’s better this way. She grunts, and swings. Comet breaks through the first one- pulverizing its face, knocking it into the path of the second before Videl is moving again, lunging forwards, shoving Comet down the throat of the third and tearing it upwards, the head of Comet smashes through its skull, up and out, before crashing back down and breaking the fourth against the ground. The fifth one lunges, she flips Comet around and stabs Comets haft through its eye, into its brain, and back out the other side.  
  
More.  
  
She finds the central plaza.  
  
Howling like the beasts they are, smashing against the barricades, leaping up and over, only to impale themselves on spears gleaming wine red with the blood of countless more grimm. There were perhaps a dozen of them. Back to back, Javelins and spears, swords and crossbows. Tattered uniforms and desperate eyes, hoarse cries and desperation; the truth of combat is all that remains.  
  
She moves, she runs, she jumps.  
  
She is in among the tide of Beowolves now.  She swings, she mulches the first one, her mace smashing clean through the body and crashing into the second. She barley even notices when a Grimm clamps down on her ruined left arm. She doesn’t stop it with her Aura- why bother blocking when you could instead kill? She spins- the tendons tearing and away falls her forearm. She calmly and precisely brings up her knee underneath its jaw, breaking its neck with a crack muffled by now dead weight. Even with death upon it Videl brings comet down over its skull, crushing its head between knee and weapon.  
  
She ducks- Beowolf sailing over her head from behind, she craters its gut with Comet, and smashes back another that lunges from her front with the down stroke. She spins and kicks out- her foot catching in the eye of a Grimm and tearing its head clean off- she lets her Semblance dance and the strings cut through the air around her like monofilament wire, lacerations and eviscerations, she swings comet again,  
pulverizing the lower back of the one she just blinded, Comet screams down, just above its haunches, the pelvis came apart with a resounding crackle and snap of shattering bone slicing into muscle and meat.  
  
More.  
  
“More.”  
  
Only one more, and she watches the arrow pierce through its skull and skewer it to the ground.  
  
The bloodied and shaken guard, his tunic once blue is now drenched red, his metal helmet is dented, his quiver is empty, he sees that there are no other Grimm around them, he lets his bow fall slightly. There are only three of them left. They are surrounded by the dead and soon to be dead.  
  
She watches the Grimm twitch- its fantastic vitality and burning rage fighting through the arrow in its brain, and then it lies still, dead. She feels something churn in her gut at the all too clean kill.  She can hear the others shouting- bemoaning, asking for questions, and looking for answers that she doesn’t really care about anymore.  
      
“That one was mine.” She mutters aloud.  
  
“What?” The archer fumbles his words; the Huntress before him transfixes him. Blood runs down her body, she is completely drenched in it- the pits of death that are her eyes remain the only thing unsullied by the viscera. Her left arm is torn off below the elbow, shards of glass gouge her legs, her shirt and bra are missing, revealing the jagged lines and gauges left by the claws of the grimm.  
  
She walks over to the Beowolf he shot; she kicks the arrow, breaking it off at the haft. “You took my kill.”  
  
“I-, what,”  
  
“You took My kill.” She slams her foot on the dead beasts throat, crushing its neck, breaking it open and letting dead arteries drench the street with yet more red. And the Huntress pauses. She glances back at him, his comrades. Something is working behind her eyes.  
  
She turns around, her weapon- a jagged edged long hafted battle mace- she shakes it, the blood slicks off its handle.  
  
“YOU TOOK MY KILL.”  
  
The Archers name was Austin. His head comes apart; his skull shatters like brittle porcelain.  
  
Denver was next to him. His torso is crushed; his heart bursts from the impact and fills his lungs with blood.  
  
Benkelman was behind Denver, he had enough time to scream before a glowing wire wrapped around his throat and tightened- severing his head.  
  
Videl watched the head fall before the body, and when it hit the ground, the rage left her, the unnatural rage that welled up in her gut after seeing the arrow cut through a Beowolf before Comet had a chance to meet it.  
  
She had killed them. She had killed these Militiamen out of spite.  
  
And she enjoyed it.  
  
 That was magnificent.  
  
“I…”  
  
Did you feel it?  
  
She chokes on her words  
  
Was it not pure? The hatred? Was it not exhilarating?  
  
“It… was…”  
  
You embraced it- and you were Beautiful.  
  
“I… was…” Her lips twitched.    
  
Pure. You were pure. You opened your heart and the shackles fell away.  
  
There was the beat. The drums. She could hear drums. The drums in the embers as the fire continued to spread. They floated around her, carried on the dread winds, playing like miniature marching bands. The grimm were coming again, and she watched their wicked shapes coalesce out of the shifting shadows cast by firelight- and she now saw the truth- they did not crawl, they did not charge, they did not creep, they Marched.  
  
The Beowolves Marched, claws striking the ground in time with the drums- in time to the beating of a Heart filled with rage.  
  
Comet swung, Videl screamed- and she began to kill again.  
  
They die like the beasts they are.  
  
Look at you. You wipe them aside like chaff.  
  
Videl let’s her strength roar, it is strength she didn’t even know she had- comet is a red crescent carving through the air. It smashes into grimm and delivers them unto oblivion. A beowolf lunges for her, jaws agape and she strikes it down with ease.  
  
Videl can feel it. She can hear it. She can taste it on her lips as the crimson coats her body.  
  
Videl shouts and her semblance blazes into light with a sickly red glow. It wraps around limbs and constricts with crushing force, savage growls turn into whimpers that turn into silence as comet breaks their bodies.  
  
The angels are singing and the devils are screaming, she can feel the drums radiating through her body.  
  
She spins, jumping, darting over a pack of three she turns in the air- comet cutting down and breaking through one Grimm, smashing into the second, and the shockwave pulverizing the third. She lands and Comet claims another grimm beast that screams out of a burning building- the light of fire reflects across the gore coated metal of her maces head.    
Something savage, something black, coiling in her soul- it is waiting, it is listening, and the whispers now scream.  
  
You know the words.  
  
Her mouth opens, lungs filled with air, ready to scream- a burst of fire off in the distance, a shape flying through the air like darting quicksilver.  
  
Elyla.  
  
You must say it.  
  
She holds her tongue- a Grimm bulrushes her, she sidesteps but its claws reach out, they rake across her side and cut deep. She feels the fury again- the Red Hate boiling inside her and she screams at the Grimm, the stump of her left arm-twists, her semblance pierces out of bone and flays the offending beast alive.  
  
Say it.  
  
The words roll on her tongue but something holds her back. She can feel a pain- deep inside her.  
  
Say it.  
  
A Beowolf snarls- red and bloody eyes staring up at her, she holds it at bay- a quick- swing of Comet sets it back a step- and then it lunges.  
  
Say. It.  
  
Something stirs, her blood trembles. Her face flushes hot- thoughts roll across her conscious without former proclivity. Her days as a student, her first sexual encounter, her mother and sister, they come unannounced. The beowolf lunges again, it crashes against her semblance- she pulls the snare tight and the pain in her stump explodes with a shattering force- it was as if all the agonies until now were released upon her.  
  
“Blood…” It creeps out of her mouth like red saliva  
  
Say It Louder.  
  
“Blood for the…” The beowolf leaps, she lets it, and then she moves, jerking to the left she forces the head of Comet down its throat.  
  
Again.  
  
“Blood for the blood… god.” The way it writhes on Comet, choking, struggling, fangs gouging her arm, it seems hilarious and she begins to laugh.  
  
And she begins to chant.  
  
“Blood for the blood god.”  
  
She rips comet out of the Beowolf.  
  
“Skulls for the skull throne”  
  
She lets it slump low- the lacerations of its stomach and throat, gore drips out of its mouth.  
  
“Blood for the Blood god!”  
  
She kicks- hard- smashing her boot down on its back, driving it to the ground, her strength overwhelming.  
  
“Skulls for the skull throne!”  
  
She brings down Comet- smashing its legs, breaking its arms; its howls begin to fade into whimpers.  
  
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD”  
  
She is seething, she is raging, she falls to her knees, she drops Comet, it hits the ground and she is ripping at its head- jerking its neck, it tries to bite her but she slams her head down against its skull.  
  
“SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE”  
  
She twists its head- hard.  
  
“BLOOD”  
  
Something in its back cracks.  
  
“SKULLS”  
  
It stops moving, and she pulls.  
  
“BLOOD”  
  
Its tendons rip as its head comes off- spine and gore spilling out.  
  
“SKULLS”  
  
Her heart is racing, her cunt is sodden and her breath comes fast, she bites down upon the skull, her teeth mulch into flesh and fur.  
  
“BLOOD”  
  
She screams into the severed head, carving her teeth over the skull peeling away flesh and muscle.  
  
“SKULLS”  
  
Her semblance comes, ripping into the head, curling around and flensing away that which was impure, ripping away features until only that which was desired remained- the grinning hound skull, the red mark of the Blood God scarred upon its forehead.  
  
And Videl Screams.  
  
“KILL”  
  
She holds high the trophy.  
  
“MAIM”  
  
Something inside her breaks.  
  
“BURN”  
  
She burns.  
…  
Leagues away, in a trio of cells made unbreakable, three warriors lost raise their heads from genuflection. They feel the drumbeat of war.  
…  
  
Leagues away, under burning sands in a ruined city, in the dweller depths of a sewer, a perfected being rises. It hears of a river of blood.  
  
…  
  
Leagues away, upon an island of the abominable, a living weapon raises its head from the scope; it can feel a chill in the air creep slowly.  
  
…  
  
Leagues away, upon a windswept continent of harsh gorges and rain, four figures raise their head, pausing their long journey to shudder under the presence of a red gods notice.  
  
…  
  
Leagues away, upon the plains of sand endless, an army halts its march, staring heaven words and envisioning a throne of skulls.  
…  
  
Leagues away, a great giant stirs. Its master still slumbers.  
  
…  
  
Leagues away, beings of iconoclastic war reside in surroundings most sepulchral, they chant in bitter tongues and feel the ocean swell and surge around them. As one, they raise their hands and praise the song of four.  
…  
Another lamb strays.  
Another soul broken.    
...  
  
Something wicked comes this way, its grace a horrid sight.  
Something evil stalks the hay, its deeds of darkest blight.  
Something ancient wakes this day, its strength of forgotten night.  
  
Elyla doesn’t know why, she cannot remember when, but the old nursery rhyme taunts her now, whispering through her mind from the depths of her travelers past.  
  
It is a message that comes to her; the caress of cold wind in the midst of a burning city is what triggers its resurrection. For a moment, she doesn’t seem to breathe as the world stands still, recoiling in revulsion from an unknowable occurrence. Elyla snaps out of the trance, her feet touch down on the rooftop and she turns and burns, flames spiraling out of her hands from Lyric. The dust-powered flamethrowers send her jetting backwards, out of the grips of the Grimm beasts that thought to chase her. They are instead incinerated.  
  
There is something indecipherable in the way the wind stirs, in the way that the dread ash of corpse fires twisted in the air in some sort of macabre dance. There is the laughing of distant souls, lost departed, cackling at a tribute to a dread idol to see the world they left behind burn in dread revenge. She can feel the invisible agony turned loose upon the world with a hellish breath of screaming.  
  
It is a madness that drives the snare drum that is her heart into a fit of panic. There is an urgency surging within her that Elyla has nowhere to place. The town still burns, the monsters still rage, and she still fights with all of her power- nothing has changed, yet it seems that everything has. She flits about on the roofs of burning homes, blasting through packs of mutated Beowolves with all the Huntress borne instinct given to her. As she moves, she thinks to herself that she is swimming. The air is no less heavy, but something tugs at her soul, it ripples within her, loose, unchained, unburdened by her mortal coil. It feels like if she were to let it, it would slip away from her and be lost in the ether of the afterlife.  
  
She skips, she dances, she spins in the air, the wind rushes through her bangs, and she ignites the world behind her. Burning fur, smoldering flesh, it is turned to ash and falls to the streets below. The next roof hammers a shock up her legs, burning into the long, angry cut on her left leg. She had lost focus for a second, she had forgotten of her surroundings, one slipped in too close before she could call up her aura. It was costing her dearly now with every jump and every landing blistering through her mind with pain. She wasn’t like the other hunters who could just seemingly shut themselves away from the agony and fight on- for her, every splinter was a driving nail digging into her skull.  
  
The pack behind her never seems to shrink no matter how many times she turns on it and unleashes the elemental fury of Lyric. Its numbers only seems to grow, the swarm of red eyes and glint of wet fangs staring back at her with feral hunger, loping strides carrying them closer and closer. She wonders how much longer Lyric will last, after that, she was certainly doomed; Acura had been giving her lessons in close-in hand to hand, she was a natural teacher, but then-  
  
The memory corrupted her movements, Elyla almost slipped on another loose shingle but this time she righted herself, her tail acting like a counterbalance and she leaps over the street to the other side, rolling up a slanted rooftop and vaulting off of the chimney. She can already hear the braying of the hounds behind her, she can hear the scrabble of claws. Elyla buys herself time, she tightens the spread of Lyrics flame and aims down, the fire eats through the rooftop she stands on like heated stone melts the ice of a frozen lake. The first Beowolf to leap across the gap lands on weakened beams that crumble under its weight, and by the time the second and third make the jump Elyla is vaulting over to the next rooftop and then the next. She loses the horde for now- but it is never far behind.  
  
She drops into an alley, her leg aches but she silences herself with thoughts of Videl. She recalls the sight of her back torn open, the thought of the agony she must’ve been in but stifled and managed to smile through. She tells herself to be strong like her, to shove aside the fire in her calf and soldier on. Still, she cannot help but look down and wince at the sight of her torn up leg- the glistening of bone peering up at her through severed tendons and rent muscle.  
  
She underestimates how quickly the horde finds her.  
  
Her ears twitch, she spins on the balls of her feet and Lyric is up- pilot light already ignited and ready to let loose a torrent of chemical fire. It is all too slow as the two-hundred and eighty odd pounds of muscle, fur, bone, and hate pile into her smashing her to the ground.  
  
She screams, she cant help it; it slips through her lips, shrill and fearful. Her Aura roars into activation, the glimmering field absorbs the first blow- sharpened talons rake across her frame to no effect, and so does the second and third, but the forth is different.  
  
Claws cut into her cheek- digging in a painful inch, then Lyric ignites. Her weapon is still set to a condensed expulsion, and it cuts through the Grimm straddling her like an arc torch.  
  
It slumps over to the side, its upper torso severed in half. It lurches once, and then it is still, Elyla stares at it, panting, hyperventilating, back against the wall of some shop she staggers to her feet. She is about to scream again when a shingle hits her shoulder.  
  
She looks up. She sees them and her breath catches in her throat as dozens of pairs of eyes, red and wrathful; stare down at her from vantage points.  
  
There is a voice in the back of her head, laughing at her, smug and cruel.  
  
It tells her.  
  
Did she ever really think that she could have lost them that easily?  
  
…  
  
Swing and dodge, cut and dance, Duke answers the evil before him with parries and thrusts with his knife, for that is all that he has left. In better times, he would have used it for fish he reeled in from a stream, or to skin rabbits. Now, he uses it to fight, for there is no reason not to.  
  
They are half there starting number, but the enemy, the enemy of all life, creation, and hope, has payed dearly for each one of there numbers. Beasts littered the ground alongside human, corpses one and the same. They served to mark the bloody vengeful battle that transpired here.  
  
Backed into the corner, ringing the inner plaza shoulder to shoulder, cuts, gouges and mortal wounds all, teeth grit and snarling fiercely, a wall of hate was beset against them. Their numbers seemed endless, pitiless, they were unrepentant things cared not of what they had become. Blood soaked the roots; that is what mattered.  
  
Duke cut one across the nose, it snarled and he managed a back slash before its strength bowled him over, filling his vision with snarling, slathering maws before Beryal next to him smashed it back with a broken board.  He scrambled to his feet in time to see Ethel torn out of place and ripped to shreds. Their numbers were dwindling so very fast now, but that was all right, so long as they died fighting. They were about ready; it was almost time, time for the final stand, when the eruption of noise silenced all combat.  
  
Like a guttural steam whistle, high, and shrill. It was violent in its cackled birthing pains, flowing out through the city like an invisible flood of orgiastic malcontent. It left the aftertaste of blood in the mouth, running down the back of ones throat and settling in the lungs. Every breath heavy with added material weight. Duke and his flock were not given the time to ponder as to what had transpired, nor given any credence to what had been born into this desecrated world. There was only the immediate moment the blood in their hands and the foe before them. So they swung, and they chopped and they hacked and they died. Shrill screaming in the night, a commoner’s plight.  
  
A house collapses several blocks away, Duke ignores it as he backs off, a Corrupted hellion thing snarling at him, torn fleshy lips red with saliva. He catches it across the face again, this time managing to work his shank into its eye socket and root the blade into its fevered brain until it finally falls still. He coughs, trying to work air back into his asthmatic lungs. He counts just seven of them left, and an entire horde still on its way. The screeching cry erupts into the air again, and with this exultation, everything seems to stop as if by some grandiose movement by an omnipotent conductor.    
  
The grimm stop, they relent, they back away with fidgeting steps unused to the concept of discretion, yet still they obey. Duke walks his haggard eyes back and forth across the plaza, finally able to take in the savagery wrought here. Bodies cover the flagstones and not all are still. Some twitch, some writhe, some moan in breaking voices. They had fought hard.  
  
It wasn’t over.  
  
Then again, the war never is.  
  
The Grimm creep back to the edges of the forgotten plaza, hunched forms under the overhangs of long abandoned buildings. Red eyes glaring out at them. They scuttled to loom over them from atop stacked crates, barricades and sat like villainous gargoyles from rooftops. The world felt like it was breathing in and staring- waiting, breath held, judging.  
  
Duke steadied his hands; the hilt of his knife dug deep into his callused palm and the trip hammer of fear that was his constant companion seemed to redouble its efforts in drowning out reality. He looked across the ruin of corpses, a dark, dismal alley seemed to glow with red blighted heat. At its end there it stood silhouetted.  
  
It made its entrance known with the scraping of metal.  
  
The Corrupted hounds backed away, fear or respect, they were one in the same; they drew from its steps, parting like the red sea that they are. You could almost hear the drums, thundering in the distance with fearsome wrath.  The blood began to boil, the heart began to race, Duke looked upon this new entity and-  
  
“Oh,” He sighed, his knife lowered slightly, his face softened in pain. “You poor, poor lil’ girl.” He spoke with remorse.  
…  
  
Elyla is still. Frozen by her own weakness as the largest among the leering beasts muscles its way to the front of the pack to look down at her from the roof above. Its fangs curl outwards, more tusks than anything else. Their breathing is a heavy, rhythmic pant that when combined almost sounds like laughing. She finds it fitting- that laughter. She would laugh at herself too if she were them. Why would anyone ever bother on wasting their time training an ingrate like her?  
  
She doesn’t even bother resisting. She doesn’t call up her Aura or raise her weapons. She shudders and sighs, her eyes closed and tears streaming down her cheeks. The thought of Videl waiting alone in some building sends her heart aflutter but even that is not enough to motivate her in the end. She is drained- and some evil voice whispers to her the most terrible of truths.  
  
A moment passes  
  
And then a second.  
  
Elyla wonders why she is still breathing, why her spine is not ripped out, why her blood still runs in her veins and her heart still beats.  She chances open her eyes and she sees the Alpha- for that was what it must be- raise its head, its pack follows suite, staring off in the distance. It comes swiftly now. Elyla feels reality begin to bend that- much- more-  
  
A shrieking banshee’s call like metal on glass. Elyla covers her ears and screams, the beowolfs wail and roar. They bound away, hurtling over rooftops in a singular direction. Like black clouds they vault over the alley. Elyla feels something take root in her chest. A sense of dread mixed with emotions she cannot truly make out. Whatever it is- it pulls her to her feet as the cries begin to recede.  
  
She finds herself moving, leaping over rooftops- that same transfixed stupor that took hold of her the night before falling over her vision as she chases after the mass of black bodies. It is what allows her to ignore the streets washed red with blood, the piles of corpses and piles of skull, the flensed remains of skin draped over statues and smothering fountains. She listens to the whispers that draw near.  
  
She wakes up.  
  
The entrance of that dread familiar alley lies before her; she blinks trying to recall how she got here but failing.  She cannot bring herself to fully question it, the circumstances of tonight are unknowable. She finds herself with a choice familiar to her.  
  
Stay, and march forth.  
  
Leave, and run away.  
  
It wouldn’t be the first time.  
  
There is a hate spewing from the passage, it curls like a slow drifting mist along the ground. It is invisible but it is colored red, a hazy rose’ of freshly peeled skulls. There is menace to its nature, there is also remorse.  Regret and trauma make up its existence. Elyla, is afraid, her hands and knees tremble and quake. She hates herself for it. She hates this weakness that surrounds her, every waking second of her life is nothing but a second-guessed regret and it is this mental anguish that pushes her forwards. One foot in front of the other, she steps over the bodies of homeless and Grimm alike- her eyes are drawn downwards, and she finds the horror of her surroundings oddly muted.  
  
She enters the abattoir proper.  
  
A body is thrown, and it lands next to her.  
  
She doesn’t pay attention to it, her focus is solely locked upon the only thing that still stands.  
  
As she remembered her, Videl was always tall, but was never to be considered scrawny. She trained- hard. Her body was solid, and always battered. Her skin was lightly tanned from days spent out on patrol, and she had a light dusting of freckles over her shoulders and cheeks that Elyla always poked fun at. Her eyes were a husky blue-grey with flecks of gold and silver, always calm and affectionate. Her hair was worn loose and flowed; she kept it cut short so her brown locks didn’t impede her work.  
  
What was standing before her was so abhorrently wrong in how right it looked.  
  
It was what Videl looked like to Elyla on the day they first met. Soaked in blood and so terribly, incomprehensibly strong.  
  
Muscled like a bull ox, and a full two feet taller she struts around the plaza with a cool arrogance. She is naked; she wears nothing- her body is riddled with scars that Elyla cannot remember. They are unfamiliar to her, concentric, woven into her skin to make lines and circles and shapes that defy the mind. Every step crushes another body, every stride a pulping flesh and marrow. One hand is curled into a fist around the haft of what may have once been comet but is instead now a bronze cudgel of flanged edges and snarling faces. Her other hand is not a hand at all- but is instead a beastlike appendage. Razor talons tip each finger, its skin a bloodied red. It is wrapped around a bundle of skulls tied together with strips of flesh and sinew. Her eyes are a burning orange menace, black pupils like slivers of obsidian. Her mouth seems too big for her face. Spiraling horns sweep back over her head; her mess of black hair is loose and wild. This is Videl, but it is not her Videl.  
  
  
Videl turns, and gives Elyla the sunniest smile she has ever seen.  
  
“Oh! Hey there, Elyla!” Her teeth are jagged, black fangs. A forked tongue cleans blood from their ebony surface. “It’s about time you showed up, I was beginning to worry!”  
  
Somewhere in the distance, an oil-drum erupts.  
  
“What’s the matter Ely?” Videl grins even wider. “Somethin’ bugging you?” A moment passes only with the sound of burning buildings; the night is awash in flame. Videl clicks her wicked forked tongue, “C’mon Ely, speak up, what is it?” She chuckles, all the while she crushes a neck with her foot, bone turning to dust.  
  
A Grimm skirts out of the shadows at the corners of the plaza, its fanged mouth snatches up the severed head and it returns to the mire.    
  
“Vi…del…?”  
  
There we go,” Videl grins even wider “that’s the voice I remember, that’s the one I never stopped hearing- even when I sleep,”  
  
“Videl, Videl you-”  
  
Her smile dropped abruptly. “-Do you know how fucking annoying it is.” She hefted Comet over one massive shoulder. “How irritating your endless fucking whining is?” She growls now. “How you never seem to shut the hell up and actually do something?” One step forwards.  
  
“I- Videl…”  
  
“It’s like a gnat that doesn’t know when to fucking quit just constantly buzzing in your ear, driving you insane and you can’t do jack shit about it, can’t hit it can’t touch it, can’t wave it away.”  
  
“I- Wait, Videl please stop, just,”  
  
“There it is again!” Her roar is like thunder; it sends fear shooting through Elyla. “That fucking whimpering! I haven’t even touched you yet and your acting like a full fucking bitch!”  
  
“Videl- Stop it!”  
  
“Or else what? You’ll cry some more? You fucking joke, you embarrassment! Just die already you useless whore!”  
  
The blow came faster than she could see. And she found herself flying. Something inside her was definitively broken. It wasn’t just her heart. She hit the ground, her Aura flashed, but she didn’t move, she didn’t get up.  
  
“Shit, just one hit and you go down?” Videl sneers, “C’mon, use your fucking muscles, for something other than just grinding your pussy across my fingers whenever you got the damn chance you skank!”  
  
Elula pushes herself up, forcing herself to stand on shaky legs. She looks up at Videl, desperately trying to understand- trying to pick apart this cruel joke.  
  
“Don’t give me that fucking pathetic look!” Videl snarls, she swings Comet, it arcs through the air, and red contrails seem to follow after it. “You’re fuckin’ worse than a kid. At least they stop after you smack ‘em around a few times.”  Videl advances on Elyla, her footsteps shake the ground and pulp through bodies with each step. Elyla matches her step for step, scurrying backwards until her back felt the cold and uncaring metal of that dread black statue. .  
  
“You’ve always been a real fuckin joke, you know? Team Cave wasn’t even Cave it was team c-a-v after you showed up. Never fucking did anything useful.  Just got people killed looking out for you.” She’s before her now, staring down like a malevolent schoolyard bully- violence for the sake of violence. “A real shitty partner, couldn’t ever get me off, always had to fingerblast myself after I spent all that time eating your shallow fucking cunt out.” Even if Elyla had the words they were quickly silenced, her monstrous clawed hand closes around her throat- its touch is hot and burns like acid. “ Weak piece of shit, was fucking better off without you, everyone was. Never wanted you in the first place on the team but that little bitch Acura insisted we give you a chance. Fucking glad that’s over, got a new partner now- one that can pull his own fucking weight unlike a freak like you.” She let go, but only after tossing her, flinging her back across the plaza to land against the opposite wall, crumbling to the ground.  
  
She doesn’t move despite the pain. She hasn’t bothered bringing up her Aura, part of her agrees with the hateful poison spilling out of Videls mouth, past her black fangs and forked tongue.  She was speaking truths she’s always known to fester in the back of her mind, in the pit of her heart.  Now that they were being voiced only led credence to such vitriol, every syllable was another knife driven deeper into her heart working its way in until it reached her soul. She didn’t know what had happened to Videl, something had changed her in body and soul.  
  
But it was still Videl. And hearing her say these things hurt in ways that were entirely new for Elyla. She had always thought that she was accustomed to pain, that she had hurt in every way that was possible to imagine. She was clearly wrong. And now she knew.  
  
She remembered  the day it all began.  
  
It was on the proving grounds of Signet, the barren courtyard of marble flagstones where thousands of Hunter teams have been assembled and dispersed out into Remnant. She had her hands wrapped in bandages after her latest accident with Lyric, and her cheeks were flushed red. It was the day that she was set to meet with a team she had just been assigned to after graduating from the ‘special enrollment class’ and she had wanted to make a good impression. She had thought that the best way to do that was to tweak her weapon to be more ‘formidable.’  
  
It had only resulted in burning herself upon ignition.  The three Hunters couldn’t stop staring at her bandage swathed hands, even as her Special Enrollment instructor went on about this being a chance for a ‘new beginning’ and ‘a great legacy’ and all that usual uplifting trite they spew at Hunter academies. The hunters just keep sizing her up. She can understand why, she’s going to be a constant reminder of their fallen comrade. She’s a replacement, a newcomer, and an outsider. She’s not even any good, she hasn’t even joined them or been out on a formal patrol and she’s hurt herself. She hasn’t even seen real combat, she was a SEC student, a forced statistic, a political coin to be traded and shown off.  That was what the Special Enrollment Class was at its base level: Politics. Hunter academies needed to put on a show of being all-inclusive, and as a Faunus she was given special treatment in this regard. Nobles and students with wealthy backgrounds were fast tracked into special classes that made it impossible for them to fail no matter how bad they were in actuality. Elyla would have failed out of Signet if not for this. In a way, it would have been more honorable to just give up and drop out on her own, but she never did. She didn’t know what was more shameful- walking away, or getting handed a certificate that she didn’t earn.  
  
They didn’t say anything to her in the beginning, she was just there as they went back to their bunks, their temporary housing before they went out on assignment. She went to her bunk- the bed of their old teammate- and curled up under the covers.  She pulled the curtains shut and turned off the lights. She remembers sitting there for what feels like hours, her tail in her hands, letters and postcards laid out on the mattress before her. She reads them over again and again. Their words of praise and excitement, encouragement and promises to visit. Family, friends, even letters from people she never really knew. Elyla was the first from the caravan to go to a Hunter Academy.  The first one to break out of the cycle and try and become something. She was their idol. They were the reason why she let herself take the certificate she never deserved in the first place and continue living the lie.  She didn’t write back to any of them. Still, they just keep on coming.  
  
It was Videl that first spoke to her. She supposes this was when she first took a liking to Videl. Still under the covers when she walked in, she tried to hide her postcards and letters; they instead spilled out all over the floor. There was a brief struggle to explain, to say something. Videl was confused as to what was the problem. They talked for a while after that. Just going over the basics of names and places. Videl knew how Elyla was feeling. She knew pretty well. Videl wasn’t from a SEC class, her skill and talent was her own natural gift. What she knew was how it felt to be a replacement, how to fill the shoes of someone else and know that you can never fully fit them. It wasn’t something that was easy or comfortable, but it was a struggle that had to be dealt with, and only time could fully mend it.  
  
Videl took her by the hand, and led her down to dinner with the Team. There was a round of introductions, and as it turned out only Calvin was an original member. Acura was also a ‘Replacement’. Elyla wasn’t alone in that regard.  Calvin told her the stories of before Videl and Acura, and how it led to this. In a way, Elyla felt that she was being shared something sacred, and it made her smile.  
  
She remembers her first mission, her first real mission in Vale, and how scared and excited she is. The conflicting emotions churn inside her, and she’s shaking as they ride out of the city and into the countryside. The truck bounces almost as much as she does, and Acura can’t stop laughing at the way she seemingly vibrates, a pensive look creasing her brows.  She tries to relax to little avail, eventually she gets used to the feeling- she works around it instead of fighting it. It keeps her alert. They call it adrenalin.  She calls it Nerves.  
  
They fly through the forest, Grimm race beneath them, Herded into clumps by explosive concussions from Calvin’s weapon, and raze wire traps set by Acura. Videl swoops down and grinds them into pulp. Elyla keeps the perimeter secure. Or so she tries. She can’t land any hits. She gets close to the Grimm, she goes in for a razor swipe of her gauntleted claws, and she freezes up. She remembers that day when she looked down from the wall, down onto the shantytown overrun by grimm. The torn up carcass of that Faunus boy in the jaws of an Ursa Majoris. She replaces the boy with herself, and she freezes up. She jumps away before she is hit, but she fitfully watches the Grimm try and attack Acura from behind. She shouts and curses. Elyla cannot even bear to raise her head when they try and talk to her at the end of the mission; she hasn’t even managed to kill one Grimm.  
  
They are not even angry with her. She can’t understand why, especially Acura, who has a shallow scar running down her back now because of her. It isn’t deep; she brought up her Aura at the very last second. Elyla felt like she wanted to die.  Acura had been counting on her, and she had let her down. Some of the Grimm even managed to get away and their employer had penalized them for it.  
  
Elyla doesn’t know why they don’t shout at her, she doesn’t know why they are instead sympathetic. She doesn’t understand why Calvin stood up for her when another team insulted them for when they saw that she was a SEC graduate. It was surreal- watching Calvin raise his voice in her defense, it wasn’t how Calvin’s normally cheerful demeanor seemed to shift so abruptly, but the fact that someone was actually coming to her defense. Such a thing just didn’t ever happen. She was not only a Faunus but also a talentless outsider who rode on the success of others and the favor of the system.  She wasn’t worthy of pity, sympathy, or protection.  
  
Even when she came back to her room one morning, only to find her belongings ransacked through, she didn’t expect pity.  Her letters and postcards were intact, and to her, they were all that mattered. While the abduction of her grandmother’s ring was painful, she did not cry. In a way she saw it as a sort of Tax she had to pay for even being able to be around people like Calvin, Videl and Acura. Videl stayed with her when she found out. It was the kindness that hurt her the most. When Acura and Calvin came back early the next morning, their faces cut up and bruised, bloodied, clothes ruined and eyes tired, but great grins on their faces and Calvin holding up a familiar gleaming bronze ring, Elyla actually did start crying- bawling even, great heaving sobs that didn’t abate for an hour. .  
  
She wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad or angry- happy that someone cared, sad that someone would think her worth her the time, angry that they put themselves in harms way for a rodent like her...  She settled on all three at once.  
  
Elyla remembers falling in love, or at least, having someone fall in love with her and reciprocating those feelings. She was Bisexual, with a greater tendency towards to female body and its delicious curves. Men held an interest for her, but she preferred them to not be so rugged. Even so she didn’t really realize it herself. She was always so afraid; every emotion second-guessed if it had anything to do with happiness or any other greater state of being. Joy was a foreign concept to her nature, and only since joining team Cave did she have any experience with it, did she have any inkling of climbing out of her obsidian shell.  It was Videl that brought her out.    
  
It was surprising that Videl was even more awkward about it than Elyla herself. Even on her first day, it had been Videl that invited her to dinner, they had talked much, and paired together on missions- missions that Elyla was starting to improve in. She could actually fight thanks to tutelage from Acura and Calvin and it was Videl that made it click with her practical knowledge and unyielding optimism. Something had changed though; Videl had always been cool and calm. But every time they were alone together, out at a park or resting in the dormitory, she would seem to fidget; she would appear almost uncomfortable, like bugs were crawling up her legs. And for reasons that Elyla couldn’t explain she would find her own tail twitching, her cheeks turning red.  There was a strange desire to just get closer to her.    
  
It didn’t go on without notice. Calvin was the first to pick up on it, the stray signals in the air that Elyla was all but oblivious to. His candied teasing was relentless, and Elyla for the life of herself couldn’t understand what it was that he was insinuating, No amount of demands for silence or cessation from Videl seemed to do anything. Acura was clearly enjoying the spectacles. It took about a week before Elyla finally understood Videls intentions with the propositions for time alone together, the small gifts, the soppy one liners, and even then it was only because of a not to gentle nudge from Calvin. Videl confessed, and Elyla could see the fear in her eyes when she hesitated. It was not out of concern, but from shock and disbelief. Again, she was used to being alone and hated. But to find herself together and loved was territory she could not navigate.  She took a risk, and she kissed Videl.  
  
Her first time was frightening and awkward, but also magical. There was pain, and there was pleasure. The feeling of someone else’s skin against her own, the soft panting of another’s breath on her cheek, the twin beating of hearts and the gleam of stars in a lovers eyes. It was embarrassing when Videl found out that the base of her tail was her weak spot, as well as the inside of her ears. Her reactions were loud enough that Calvin walked in on them, thinking someone in pain.  Calvin congratulated them before leaving, and that was their first night together. Acura insisted on celebrating their relationship by buying the team breakfast next morning. It was one of the happiest moments- if not the happiest moment- of her life.  
  
It was, of course, only two days later that Calvin died.  
  
It was an honest mistake.  No one could have foreseen it, it was just bad luck. Weapons are tools; tools can fail, even when they are maintained almost religiously. A part fails, a wire crosses, a gear catches.  
A bullet can be a dud.  
 Elyla can see it as clear as the day it happened.  Calvin hangs in the air, the Griffon swoops down, talons extended. Calvin twists and brings up his weapon; he has a perfect shot- there is no way he can miss. He aims at its head and pulls the trigger. Even from halfway across an open field swarming with grimm- she can hear the firing pin hit the bullet- and nothing happens.  The round was a dud, it doesn’t go off, before he can eject the round the Talon is already on him, driving him to the ground, His aura flares- it protects him, but in the next two seconds he is trampled by an Ursa pack. He has time to scream. That is what Elyla remembers the most clearly. He could have screamed, but he didn’t.  He vanishes from sight in a blitz of black and white.  There was barley anything left to recover by the time Videl got to him.  Elyla found it strange how she didn’t feel like crying.  She didn’t feel anything at all in fact, it felt normal.  Everything in her world had been turned upside down, any other person would be in an emotional roller-coaster, but for Elyla she was simply back in reality0- like this death had plucked her out of her happy little dreamscape and returned her to the cold harsh truth of living. Videl was trying to stay strong, she had lived through this before, but Acura had taken it hard.  
  
She was almost inconsolable, and Elyla recognized it- she had obviously had feelings for Calvin, but didn’t have the courage that Videl did to act on them.  Now she had only regrets left to sour any sweet memories.  
  
Acura died three days later, and that was the end of everything. It was a simple enough mission, help local forces evacuate a ritzy neighborhood east of Vale City from a Grimm incursion.  Acura had been quiet all morning despite Videl and Elyla’s attempts to liven her mood. There was a pit of dread pulling Elyla downwards, but she didn’t say anything about it. That dread only continued to worsen as the day went on, and more and more Grimm started pouring in over the walls and into the city. The mission was almost over, the last few Grimm were attacking, and they were the largest by far. They were berengals, and they had smashed through a solid wall of Police officers, and were making for the panicking citizens. Acura diverted and intercepted. She cut her way through and didn’t stop even when the Citizens had cleared the area. Videl told her to pull back and she didn’t listen. She cut through the last berengal, and immediately leaped into another pack of Ursa, and after that, a flock of Nevermores, and after that- she went for the Alpha.  Videl wasn’t fast enough, and Elyla was too far away.  
  
She could still see it happen though.  
  
The Alpha, an ancient thing covered with bones, it swatted her out of the air- she didn’t even try and defend herself. It slammed her to the ground, pounded her until her Aura broke, and then began to pull. Her Guts were red against the black pavement, both ends twitched and spasmed before dying. And the Alpha dragged her away.  
  
Just like the Ursa in the Shanty Town.  
  
That was when the dam broke, and Elyla let everything go.  
  
She vaulted through the air, she landed on the Alpha, and she ignited.  
  
Her career as a hunter, and the body of Acura, they went up in a storm of fire.  
  
Half the city burned to the ground before a fire brigade could bring it under control. The Grimm fled because of the flames but the damage was almost worse than what any simple Grimm incursion could do, and everyone had a finger to point at the source- it wasn’t an ambiguous black and white beast that did this but a teenage girl with an unstable semblance.  Elyla wasn’t going to defend herself, she didn’t want to- she didn’t care. Videl leapt at the chance, and it cost her.  
  
 She nearly lost her license, Videl, she rolled with the punches however and put on a false smile and frown. She managed to work the charges against Elyla down to a suspension pending review. Even then, it was a light suspension discounting solo missions. Elyla never took those anyway.  
  
The real struggle came from having no one wanting to affiliate with them. They were a two Hunter team with a terrible renown. No clients would offer them jobs, and the council was unwilling to give them any. Worse than that, they were effectively Abandoned. No new Recruits.  No replacements. In a way, that was all right.  
  
It was just Elyla and Videl now. Elyla found it very silly. Very amusing. She also found it sad. She entered Videls world and tried to live, but instead she ended up dragging Videl into hers.  
  
She managed to crack a grin, even now, with half her teeth missing and her arm broken.  
  
This sick game called living.  
  
Her memories lasted only for so long before she’s ripped back into the present. A massive hand wraps around her tiny body and slams her into the ground. Something in her chest breaks but she honestly can’t be bothered to care. Her head lolls uselessly as tears stream down her cheeks and up her face as she’s tossed around.  
  
Videl is talking again, her snarling rage laces her words with a bitter hint of hemlock that forces its ways into Elyla’s ears,  “Shoulda’ whored you out and used that to get the Team better kit, turn you into a fucking cumdumpster or carpet cleaner you worthless bitch.” Videl stands over her, a looming malevolent deity haloed by the red light of the smoke stained sky.  
  
She reaches down and brings her close, face to face, one last time. “Your mother should have swallowed, you know that?  This world doesn’t need weaklings like you.” She’s airborne again. Flying, falling, she can feel the heat of the burning city below; she drifts through the air, all too soon embraced by gravity. She cracks her head against the ground, the last bit of her Aura activated on instinct, even still, she lands hard, she feels her femur snap like a twig, and she opens her eyes to see the face of a dead man staring back at her.  
  
An ocean of corpses, limbs interlocking with legs, twisted all around in various piles of carnage. She completes the puzzle, landing in the only empty space it would seem. She can hear Videl laughing off behind her.  
  
Elyla stares at the face before her. It’s familiar.  Old and worn, weathered like tarnished leather. There is a humble earnestness to it.  
  
Duke.  
  
His name- he called himself Duke.  
  
He isn’t dead quite just yet.  
  
Bloodshot red and rimmed with pain. He stares back; there is a long second of silence between them.  
  
Something needs to be said, and so he speaks.  
  
“D’nt yeh remember?” His voice is like a sandpaper whisper. It won’t be long now. His face pales as he speaks. “Didn’t yeh understand?”  
  
Her memory is hazy, swirling emotions like dead weight shift and mull in her head. His words seem to ring and latch to something, but she can’t place it.  
  
“Yeh saw it. Yeh felt it. Yeh know what it meant, what it needed. Yeh heard what it wanted from us.”  
  
There was a word.  
  
“Yeh knows what it wants,”  
  
She did know, she could remember- it was that something, that something else.  
  
“Yeh need to do it.”  
  
“I can’t.” She said back, her breath was catching again.  
  
“Yeh can.”  
  
“It hurts.”  
  
“D’nt it always? Ain’t that jus’ life?”  
  
He wasn’t wrong. “Sometimes, it hurts more than others.” He swallowed. “D’sn’t matter if yeh can’t win. If yeh fight, then yeh can’t lose. D’nt yeh understand that?”  
  
Defeat is only real to those that admit defeat.  
  
“Yeh gotta fight, kid.” He said, “Yeh gotta fight.”  
  
His death was a quiet one.  
  
She was going to die. She knew that now. It didn’t register before, even when Videl was breaking her but now it did. She was going to die.  
  
And that was alright. That was okay.  
  
She might as well die in a way that was true. In the way that this stranger wanted. In a way that felt right.  
  
She tried standing. She felt her leg break even more. But the pain was secondary to the thumping chorus in the back of her head. She began to cry again. It felt natural.  
She stands, and the beast turns to face her with the mask of a lover. “Still got a little in you?” It cackles. She cackles. Videl cackles.  
  
-Fight.  
  
Tears scarred down her cheeks.  
  
-Fight.  
  
She hacked in air, blood rushing up her throat with every painful exhale.  
  
-Fight.  
  
Behind her the Black statue stood. Cold, idle, mocking.  
  
-Fight.  
  
She looked at it, and in her daze she swore that in the depths of that shattered helmet, two pinpricks of red stared out at her. They were not kind. They mocked her, whispered voices in her head.  
  
-Fight.  
  
The words snaked into her ears, causing her no end of pain, but they persisted.  
  
-Fight.  
  
Like a dread chant egging her on in the depths of her delusion and sorrow- Videls’ face is there, twisted, sneering and evil. Elyla gags, she claws at the ground, she curls her hands into fists, her claws puncturing her palms as Lyric coated her knuckles once again in fire. A ball of anger in her chest as she surged back into action, sapping what little strength she had left.  
  
-Fight.  
  
Adrenalin and angst blew through her veins like red and white heat, fueling muscles that now ran on hope and despair. One of the beasts comes, blood hungry and vicious, no longer content with waiting, it lunged, she clocked it across the mask with a right hook, and its skull came away in a pile of ashes that burst into the air on contact with her flame wreathed first.  
  
“Now you understand.”  
  
She understood now what Duke meant.  
  
It meant to struggle. It meant to fight beyond reason. It meant to keep swinging even when there was nothing left. It didn’t matter if the battle was lost- true defeat came only when you chose to acknowledge it. So long as you could still breathe- then you could struggle, and if you could struggle-  
  
You could hope.  
  
Even when in the darkest night, in the stygian pits of Hell itself, surrounded by the enemy, sundered by grief, laden with exhaustion, if one could still have hope- if one could ignite that torch within their soul and refuse to break-  
  
Then there could be no such thing as defeat.  
  
Her eyes are red and raw with tears- her body is broken in so many places. She stares at what was once her friend and lover. She screams, she throws her fist forwards, every memory of love, every moment of passion- she puts it all into one last punch-  
…  
It is enough.  
…  
Something wearing the skin of Videl crushes Elyla’s fist with a single giant hand- fangs gleaming in the light of the fire. A savage joy in its malevolent eyes as she inflicts pain upon Elyla- feeling her bones shift and snap in her hand- how they tear into muscle and puncture skin. She soaks in the warbled screaming of Elyla- the Faunus girl slumps to her knees.  
  
Too tired, too agonized, just too damned broken to try and pull her ruined ball of meat and bone that once was a hand from the red- beasts grip. She is broken, physically, emotionally and beautifully. Tears mix with blood and run down her cheeks. Elyla watches Videl raise her brutal mace- one that she had held up in protection of Elyla before, was now poised to slay her- she closes her eyes, awaiting the final impact.  
  
Death has come.  
  
…  
  
Death has come.  
  
…  
A flame burns.  
  
Elyla opens her eyes.  
  
She watches- she sees- a black metal fist enshrined with bones and wreathed in flames, it sails overhead like some shadowed wraith- crashing into Videl with the force of a cannon shot. Elyla blinks- watches Videl buckle as the fist crushes her windpipe- staggering her back- dropping Elyla’s ruined fist. Elyla immediately nurses her ruined appendage- not daring to look at the full extent of the damage- she could not do so anyways. She is transfixed. The statue, the monolith- it moves.  
  
It fights.  
  
It steps over her, one massive leg at a time- charcoal black armor gripped with a heatless fire, its steps are silent- it does not appear to be fully corporeal, but yet its actions- its movements have a direct feeling of weight- of gravitas. It was like reality was bending knee to this creature, as if time were allowing it to edit the picture that was history in some vital way. The weapon in its hands- it shifted, aiming- firing-  
  
Silent thuds, like the ghost of a noise, hopping out from the grinning skull muzzle of its weapons barrel- bright plumes of flame singing out- Videl dodges, behind her buildings crumble, wrathful explosions tear apart their insides and shatter walls as the specter walks its stitch of fire, it holds down the trigger- and Elyla notices that there are no shell casings being ejected from the chamber that rattles so silently.  
  
Videl snakes and dodges- her form now mutating- growing, glutted on whatever dark deeds that had been wrought here. She is grinning- leering, fangs bared and eyes wild, hair curling and whipping like snakes edged in razors. . One of the rounds the specter fired caught her just below the elbow- a burst of flame, a howl of pain, the limb is blasted to bits and incorporeal fire consumes half of Videl- the beast  shrieks and rages- it does not care- it kicks off the ground with its hooved feet, springing towards the legionary with all the grace of a Mad bull- such rage fuels the creature that is now Videl, from the charred stump, a new one bursts forth in an expulsion of meat and gore.  
  
A barbed hand of gnarled grasping claws and bramble fingers- , she barrels into the specter of fiery retribution, mad laughter ripping from her throat as she knocks the wraith back several precious steps- the gun it carries fires blindly, just past her head, explosive rounds smashing through walls before detonating and spraying the abandoned plaza with bits of stone and wood. She tears into her foe- her strength is something hideous as she flexes, muscles bulging unnaturally as she keeps the gun arm pushed aside- weapon unable to deliver a point blank shot- instead it is down to a grappling- the wraith grabs Videl around the neck- bone stitched armored fingers finding ample purchase, it begins to squeeze- blood froths from Videls mouth, she thrashes, she berates and behind her the Horde of Hellhounds roars. They leap into action, sanguine touched claws clicking against the cobblestone.  
  
They don’t even bother to pay attention to Elyla- downed and broken- they have eyes solely for the fiery avatar of death before them, they hiss and growl and finally leap . The giant grapples with Videl, scorching body hissing in contact with the charring leathery hide of the creature-  the first hellhound scrambles across the giants back, claws scraping against the armor of the specter, it cannot penetrate through, it does not stop it from trying, they pile on, one after the other, spectral flames hiss and scour but they do not stop. Videl tears herself free from the specters grip- with a final bulge of muscle she pulls free the great weapon and tosses it aside, Comet in her grip she lets loose a savage roar, her burning mace sparks through the air- cascading downwards like a doomed dream.  
  
Metal buckles under the weight of its blow, burning sparks not fully there flare into the wind, the specter is knocked back a pace- tearing the hellhounds from its mantle, trying to rid itself of the vile creatures that bark and snarl, throwing themselves upon its burning body in an effort to weigh it down with dread numbers. Videl steps and smashes the Specter again, a savage gleeful grin a pained rictus on her face. This is not a fair fight- and it matters not so long as blood flows- Each strike crushes a hellhound and it does not matter, each strike brings the Specter lower until it is on one knee, fending off the blows and trying to free itself of the corrupted Grimm fiends.  
  
It is losing but still it fights, still it struggles.  
  
It fights.  
  
-Fight.  
  
Elyla crawls forward. She pulls herself up with strength she didn’t know she even had.  
  
Blood leaks from her eyes, burst veins and blood vessels, trauma far too extreme for any mortal to endure has taken its toll on her.  
  
She crawls along the ground, elbows and knees, pulling herself over bodies until she can prop herself up, and try to stand.  
  
She’s staggering forwards now, one foot in front of the other, there is a task at hand for her, and something only she can do. One Hellhound snarls as it sees her approach- it leaps clear of the Specter- it latches onto her arm and her limb is ripped free as serrated fangs tear into her flesh.  She hardly even notices.  
  
She’s close enough- the beowolf drops her severed limb- it turns, moves to attack again.  
  
Too late.  
  
A semblance is a strange thing.  
  
Unique in its own way, some semblances can be similar mechanically, but different in aesthetic and activation. Some can be inherited, passed down through the generations through either luck or copious inbreeding.  
  
If there was ever a Semblance like Elyla’s before, it must’ve been covered up. It must’ve been silenced. Or maybe never used.  
  
Because one doesn’t burn down a city they are trying to save.  
  
What little power she has left in her boils to the top- the ambient heat around her lending strength to her semblance- the air seems to suck inwards, hers is the epicenter, swirling around her like an ashen implosion. And then it pauses, it cements, it seems to be crushed under enormous pressure.  
  
That is where she releases.  
  
A single spark from metal on metal, her ruined hands clutching the ignition stick of Lyric.  
  
The wind blows outwards, all foreign chemicals extracted until only pure oxygen remains- purified air, and a single spark from within the bubble sets it alight with amplified force.  
  
A firestorm washes through the plaza. Bodies are incinerated, stones washed red, buildings surrounding the plaza are blown to pieces with burning shrapnel spreading in an ever expanding area of destruction as Grimm are evaporated in seconds.  
  
And at the eye of the Storm, Elyla has no Aura left to resist her own combustion.  
  
She has fought. She fought to the bitter end. Bravely.  
  
…  
  
Fire cascades over the Legionary like a burning cloak of deliverance. Unreal heat scrapes the filth from its carapace and now it stands, reaching upwards and locking its fist around the haft of the corrupted mace before it can fall again- its wielder lost in throes of agony as skin burns and peels, flaking away in the face of such monstrous heat.  
  
All too early the firestorm ends, and the Daemon thing recovers.  
  
It leaps backwards, ducking away, its mace forgotten, its hands more like savage claws- any vestiges of humanity abandoned as a new skin molts away the old one. A forsaken spawn-thing stands before him.  
  
It is alone now. Its pack burned away in to ashes.  
  
Unarmed, alone, and not so very different.  
  
The legionary charges first.  
  
A ghostly stampede, silent as ever, warpfire flickering with every long step. The daemon screams its hatred, leaping forwards, claws extended it scores a lethal blow, darting under the Legionaries guard, and stabbing upwards- punching through armor. It would find no vitals for their were none to be had, they rotted into nothing eons ago- or where they never there in the first place? Massive gauntleted fists smash downwards and break the offending limb, bone splinters and tries to regrow but the flames of perdition would have their say even yet, and a hand locks firmly around a wrist and proceeds to crush bone and sinew. The Daemon pulls away, its arm left forgotten in the grip of the Legionary. The specter of vengeance lets the ground burn away the filth he drops. The Daemon is caged in this ring of fire. Pure fire, fire from a soul yet innocent.  This would be its final arena. Its bid for championship ended in violence just like it had begun with.  It attacks again, a desperate last gambit, doomed to failure. Strong hands close around its throat even as it cuts and rends at the Legionaries plate.  
  
The Legionary begins to squeeze.  
  
The fire spreads, and the black flame extinguished.  
  
Everything burns.  
  
Even a soul.  
  
...  
  
It is not yet over.  
  
Such is the first lucidity of those who linger in the world of Men and Mortal.  
  
The vagaries of the warp, cruel and callus as they are, come with gifts.  
  
The first among them the gift of the Lucid, the waking dream, where the world is but a liquid blur of fire and shadows, a veil that is pulled away the longer one stays. What holds me here is fading. The rot begins to take ahold again. The fire begins to die. With the banishment of the daemon and the sealing of the overlap, normality has been restored.  
  
But for how long?  
  
It is not for me to know. And even if I did, there is nothing I could do to prevent another incursion.  
  
The reason for such a facet is down to the simple truth of Time, it escapes my grasp for the simple reason that I must have more. I sift through the strings of fate, and I see unto the futures. A great scourge rising, three guardians slain. The fabric of reality undone, a sentinel blind. The apocalypse and its steward. Death from below, unsung heroes.  
  
It is bleak, but it is uncertain. The knot has yet to be unraveled, the machinations of the greater powers can yet be brought to hand and made to kneel. The cold touch of reality begins to take hold now, armor begins to rust and flake, bones turn to dust, fire into smoke into embers into ash.  
  
To return to the warp. To return from the world of the living and to become one with the miasma is to be carried along by the currents of unreality. To manifest at moments in time where mankind stood at the precipice of despair and chose to fight, and at other times- to be guided by the hand of the greatest master.  
  
I have fought in the dream for countless eons. I have battled my way across the immaterial planes. Shadows and fire is what has become of my memory.  
  
I have little time. Soon, I will be anchored in the realm of the living, and I will cease to be and this world will fall to the hands of fate. The Greater powers will have won this world and its virgin people. The same is true if I were to return to the warp.  
  
But I was sent here for a reason.  
  
So I must remain.  
  
In dedication to the Emperor from beyond the Veil of Death.  
  
That is the Truth.  
  
So I ask myself; what will it be like to live and serve again? I wonder. Another question: was I ever truly alive? Or was it all just a dream.  
  
She is so young, and her soul is so beautiful. She has suffered much, more than any her age should have. She was born unloved and unwanted, and she now dies with a broken heart.  
  
She made it possible for me to slay her daemon.  
  
She answered the call, heard the message, acknowledged the suffering of life and fought through it.  
  
She had earned her death in every way possible. Her cruel and sad life is at an end, she can go to the side of the master she never knew and be at ease for the rest of this eternity.  
  
To prolong her suffering… would be distasteful in the extreme.  
  
Yet I find no other option.  
  
For one who has earned death so admirably, she clings to it with a tenacity that belies her strength. Her soul flickers fitfully, burning the end of its wick but refusing to blow out.  
  
Her body is a scorched ruin. Limbs burnt down to the bone, skin dry and parched like old vellum. She is blind and deaf; her lips peeled back from teeth that flake and turn to dust, her eyes are shriveled into raisins from the heat, her ears are gone and her tongue is ash. She stood at the epicenter of a thermoberic flash-fire. She ignited the air around her, turned it into pure heat. It took everything she had to pull it off- so much so, that her ‘shield’ lacked the strength to resist her own attack.  
  
So instead of trying to absorb it all, she instead limited it.  
  
Her lungs, her brain, and her heart. That is all that is left of her. Trapped in this body devoid of any functionality, she resembles more a dreadnaught in slumber, unable to interact with the world, awakened only in times of great need.  
  
That time is now.  
  
She cannot see, she cannot hear, she cannot feel. Yet, she can feel me. I loom over her as the grim specter of death that I am. Her heart rate increases, her ragged breathing picks up, its almost as if she knows what is about to happen, and rebels against it.  
  
It is entirely understandable, she is not wrong to do so, but it needs to happen. In this galaxy of War, even the dead are not exempt from service.  
  
I grip her head in hands not truly real, I can see her soul, can see her mind.  
  
I call up my fire, and it spreads down my arms, traversing onto the broken body I hold, and for a second time this girl begins to burn, what is left of her skin flakes away from the bone, and then, even those begin to burn as well. I can feel myself begin to fade now, locked into this reality, my time is spent. But it is not yet over for me. The last licks of flame leave my fingers, and engulf this mortal before me  
  
It  is painful at first- but then again, what do I know of pain? Have I ever felt it before? Or is it just a concept grafted into my consciousness so that I might understand what it is that I do to others?  It is this thought that tells of my success, and the burning sensation begins to spread traversing down flesh and blood legs, rolling over arms and sparking across fingers that clench and unclench. Teeth clack mutedly behind lips and rosy cheeks. Eyes flutter open and wince in pain- real pain –at a light bright and unfamiliar. Hair runs over shoulders, ears twitch, a tail spasms, toes wiggle.  
  
And it is so, that I open my eyes again- or is it for the very first time?  
  
Kneeling over me, is myself. Cold, and utterly devoid of flame. A statue in repose. Cracked armor and yellowed bones, scripture and calligraphy woven into each piece of cartilage is frayed and worn. Dents, rents and entire sections of armor have flaked away to reveal the hollowed skeleton beneath.  
  
It turns to dust, the sun rises over a distant mountain range, the wind sweeps through the desiccated remains of a township, and I watch my existence fade away- carried upon the winds of this planet to parts unknown.  
  
It is several minutes before I can stand.  
  
I have blood pumping through my veins and arteries, propelled by a heart that beats in a calm rhythm, provided oxygen from the lungs that deflate and inflate in my chest, sucking and expelling oxygen through my nose and mouth. Sounds echo into my ears that twitch and swivel, I see through my eyes and blink at the brightness of the light and the smears of soot and ash.  My movements are jerky, uncoordinated, all to fast and erratic. I climb myself, wobble on two feet, a tail swings behind me, trying to stabilize my position, arms windmilling uselessly, and it is only seconds later that I am upon the ground again, blood spilling out from a cut lip and a throbbing pain in my ankles.    
  
I roll onto my back, shards of stone and bits of metal cut into soft flesh; they draw blood and cause considerable discomfort. This is all fine.  
  
I am staring upwards at the sky. It is bright blue, clouds drift overhead, the wind blows any remaining smoke or fire outwards and away from the ruins. The sun is shining down on me, it warms this body, it almost blinds me and I must close my eyes.  
  
I am Alive.  
  
That is a thought that I repeat over and over again in my mind. Its words echo and imprint themselves upon me.  
  
I am unsure of how to proceed.  
  
The future is never certain; I would ride on the tides of the Warp, guiding mortals from destruction.  
  
It never occurred to me that I would be forced to become one.    
  
It is around now, that I hear the sirens in the distance. The thud of propellers, shouts and calls.  
  
The sheer number of charred corpses will likely scar them, and the stench of death will linger in their minds long after this day is over.  The death that had been inflicted upon this place is unnatural- such is the mark of Chaos. This is only the second instance of it, however. It will not be the last, and before long the people of this world will grow used to its caress long before it can end.  
  
The voices draw closer, I shall be found soon. They will have questions for me, that much is certain. I am not sure what I shall tell them, or if I shall say anything at all. So long as I am taken to the City to the south, there shall be no trouble.  
  
The City to the south. 'Vale City.' Three Guardians languish there.  
  
They must be freed to act.  
  
-END.  


 

 

  
[The Future Holds]  
  
  
_The child is evil._

 _It is something that Chiki will freely admit, if ever asked about Elyla. Her eyes are amber orange, sometimes gold, or even yellow depending on when the light catches them._  
  
_Sometimes they are not._  
  
_A quick glance over her shoulder, a periphery look, a passing view: Twinned black holes- eyeless sockets of the penumbra centered on beads of scarlet red with a leering peeled skull- teeth chattering maniacally, a locked rictus of scorched black bone. She blinks, and Elyla is there again, staring back at her with that same dead eyed expression, a quiet, knowing smile playing across her lips._

  
_Chiki is afraid of Elyla_

  
_Of that much, Chiki is certain. She wields that bastard axe of a weapon- Corpse Soot- with a malignant skill that she shouldn’t possess. Then there is her Aura- Or, the lack of it, Chiki has never seen Elyla pop her Aura, she has never seen that glittering shield manifest. I_

 _t’s almost like the attacks just phase through her like a blade through smoke.  An almost intangibility seems to surround her person. Then, there is the way that she speaks, if ever at all.  So serenely jovial and matter of fact, twisting words like a poet- asking questions that are rhetorical and then postulating answers. The way she speaks of death, of killing, of the pointlessness of dying and of ways to give death meaning._  
  
_The things that she speaks._  
  
_She speaks of death, and she speaks of the afterlife. Elyla believes the afterlife to be a hell of unimaginable iniquity, a swirling mass of souls a sea of damnation where all are subject to the torments of demons,  of the thousand lacerations of death and the torment of endless time._  
  
_Chiki is afraid of Elyla._  
  
_The way she fights is inhuman. She blitzes into the Grimm, axe flying, and deathly silent, that same serene smile n her face and her eyes dead of light but filled with fire and secret hate. She hacks, she cleaves, she smashes Grimm to pieces, blood and ichor spatter across her body and she does not care in the slightest._  
  
_Chiki, is so, so terribly afraid of Elyla._  



End file.
